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I remember being on a treadmill when I was 51 and randomly watching a TV ad for vaginal estrogen. Ding, ding, ding. So that explains my sore vagina.
In this week’s column, our sexual health experts shine a light on the vaginal pain that many 50-plus women experience during sex. Yes, it’s normal — and, no, it doesn’t have to hurt.
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In the Mood
For AARP’s In the Mood column, writer Ellen Uzelac will ask experts your most pressing 50+ sex and relationship questions. Uzelac is the former West Coast bureau chief for The Baltimore Sun. She writes frequently on sex, relationships, travel and lifestyle issues.
We also tackle a reader’s question about sex following a prostate cancer diagnosis. After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the second most diagnosed cancer in the U.S., according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. And the older you are, the greater your chance of developing it.
At 52, sex has become uncomfortable and burns afterward. Is this normal?
“One of the most important things to talk to patients about is this whole idea of normal. Yes, it’s part of aging ... but if you’re uncomfortable, we can do something about it,” says Anita Mikkilineni, an ob-gyn focused on sexual health at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
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First, a quick tour of the vagina. Estrogen helps keep the tissue of the vagina and the entrance to the vaginal canal plump, moist and supple — a happy place, one hopes, for your partner’s penis. With the onset of menopause, which typically occurs in your early 50s, Mikkilineni says estrogen levels decrease, often causing dryness that can make penetrative sex painful.
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