Odor coming from the labia

"Miserable" is right, Susan! And to think I lived 64 years without even hearing about LS.

Yeh, me too.  All those little pamphlets in our gyn's offices telling how wonderful menopause can be and it's a great time in our lives.  HA!!! They didn't mention possible issues to look out for.  I know pre menopausal women get LS too, but....  you know what I mean.  

I do indeed know what you mean.  YOU don't think menopause is wonderful and a great time?  HA!!! I feel wonderful all the time and always go around having a great time!  Growing older has brought all kinds of "little surprises" that came out of nowhere.  First Essential Tremor and now LS, just to name a few. I'd love to give that pamphlet writer a piece of my mind about telling the truth about menopause!

Well, you have to admit not menstruating is a gift. Maybe the only one, but once hormones stopped affecting my brain and body I found it very freeing. The end of headaches for one thing! The rest is probably just aging and people have always had to deal with that (assuming they lived long enough). Our generation is just more open and vocal about it. Baby Boomers don't want to get old! More warning of potential problems would have been good, but menopause used to be treated like a disease (hence the HRT that caused cancer) so they tried to shift the thinking to making it a natural part of aging. Women's wisdom and all that. 

We just have to get on top of this stuff and figure out what works. Three years ago a doctor gave me such dire warnings about AV (even suggesting it could lead to cancer) I left her office completely gobsmacked. She just piled it on a bit too heavy. I didn't use the hormone cream she prescribed as my sister was dying of breast cancer (HRT) and I thought if I don't feel any ill effects of AV, maybe I can just age normally. Turns out I was wrong. But at least I can advise other women who are confused about it. Not to say that all of us using hormone cream now won't end up with vulvar cancer. Who knows? We are essentially the study group like the women taking the HRT were. Remember they used to say we needed it for all sorts of reasons? At the time of menopause my gyn was disgusted with me for not taking it. Then they stopped the nurses study because of all the breast cancer cases. Ironically, that gyn died of breast cancer. She was SO pro HRT I'm sure she was using it.

Also, we are in the minority. Not all women have serious problems with AV and certainly most do not have LS. We picked the short straw, but we are dealing with it. I am trying to keep a positive attitude, but I know my symptoms are nothing compared to others who are suffering badly. 

But we have to keep the faith and continue to search for what works for us. 

As my brother-in-law says "at least we're looking down at the grass and not up at it".

Well … sometimes it's hard to keep the faith! I think I'd rather still be menstruating if it meant I didn't have LS. At least I had natural estrogen.  And no, Beverly, I'm not so sure we are in the minority with LS … just the most vocal.  What is AV? Or do I even want to know for fear I'll "get it"?  Some days I just feel like screaming over this LS.  My t**t is all I think about any more, and I'm pretty durn sick of it!

What is AV?

I think this has been explained on here if I remember right, here is something I Googled:

" Postmenopausal atrophic vaginitis, or vaginal atrophy, is the thinning of the walls of the vagina caused by decreased estrogen levels. This most commonly occurs after menopause. "

Vaginal atrophy (or atrophic vaginitis). I'm surprised anyone with LS wouldn't be aware of it. I think all women have AV after menopause to a degree. Some of us have it to the point that it requires using hormone cream to keep serious problems from developing.

For instance, according to my new gyn my lack of estrogen brought on my LS. So presumably had I started using the estrogen cream 3 years ago when I was told I had AV I would probably not now be dealing with LS. I thought I should avoid hormones if I could and just age naturally. Clearly that has not been the case for me.

Beverly, you are aware of Nancy KB's posts on LS being an Autoimune condition, the role of Diet and the need for Vitamin and Food Mineral Supplements? If so, it is up to us as sufferers to challenge mis-information in medical professionals - even though this may be difficult to do at times as they always run each consultation like a scripted agenda from which they financially benefit.

So yes, in this instance a lack of estrogen certainly would not have helped for you. But then suggesting this could have "been a cause" of your LS is perhaps ignoring ALL the other essential factors in the condition being present for all of us sufferers.

I don't know whether this is part of the Medical Profession simply ignoring, or not wanting to admit just what it is that our modern diets are doing to us in terms of the havoc it creates for many of us, and not just us who are suffering LS but many other conditions as well?

Wee, The gyn did tell me LS was an autoimmune disease, not that it was just a case of low estrogen. Using hormone cream has pretty much reversed my AV and the steroid done the same with the LS, though it is pretty difficult to tell which is doing what exactly as I have stopped using neither the estradiol or the steroid.

I am not making any pronouncements of what has or has not caused others to have LS or what will help them with it. I'll leave that for others.

So far my experience is that the steroid cream had an immediate effect on my LS. Whether this will last or not I have no idea. I tried an essential oil product that ( recommended by a poster) which proved to be detrimental if anything and I have posted such. Clearly people experience this disease differently and have different reactions to various treatments be they those recommended by doctors or otherwise.

My gyn's opinion is that none of these will cure the condition, only alleviate it and from what I have deduced from reading many posts is that this is the case.

Yes, I have seen Nancy's post.