If you recently entered menopause, you’re in good company — roughly 50 million women in the United States are currently past the age of 51 or the average age of natural menopause.

If you recently entered menopause, you’re in good company — roughly 50 million women in the United States are currently past the age of 51 or the average age of natural menopause.

If you’re like many women, you probably went into menopause expecting run-of-the-mill symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, and mood swings. What you may not have been expecting, however, was just how much the “change of life” would affect your vaginal health and your ability to enjoy sexual intimacy.

Fortunately for you, your partner, and your sex life, recent advances in gynecological medicine have made it possible to reverse the vaginal changes that make intercourse less comfortable or even painful following menopause. Here’s what you need to know.

The far-reaching effects of vaginal atrophy

As many as three in five women who’ve gone through menopause find themselves a victim of vaginal atrophy, a chronic condition that can give rise to a variety of bothersome symptoms, including persistent vaginal dryness. And when vaginal tissues are always dry and irritated, sexual intimacy can suffer.

Like virtually all menopause symptoms and side effects, vaginal atrophy is a result of dwindling estrogen levels. Estrogen plays a vital role in maintaining balanced, well-lubricated, healthy vaginal tissues; when estrogen levels drop, those tissues can become significantly thinner, drier, and more delicate than before.

Chronic dryness is the most common symptom of vaginal atrophy; aside from causing general irritation, exceptionally dry vaginal tissues can prompt uncomfortable burning or itching that’s difficult to alleviate.

If these symptoms weren’t disruptive enough, persistent vaginal dryness is also connected to less effective lubrication during sexual arousal, which can make it much harder to take pleasure in sexual intimacy.

When intercourse is no longer comfortable, it can have a domino effect that leads to diminished libido, less connection with your partner, and even lower self-confidence.

Reverse vaginal atrophy, restore sexual health

Here at California Wellness Institute, we’ve helped many women restore optimal vaginal health after menopause with ThermiVa® vaginal rejuvenation, a groundbreaking treatment that uses noninvasive radiofrequency (RF) energy to reverse the effects of vaginal atrophy and revitalize your tissues safely, effectively, and without surgery.

During the treatment, we ease the slim ThermiVa probe into your vagina, where it emits gentle pulses of controlled heat into the surrounding tissues for a few minutes. When this gentle, uniform heat penetrates each layer of tissue, it actively encourages fresh collagen growth and rapid cell renewal.

In the days and weeks following your ThermiVa treatment, as the collagen remodeling process continues to unfold, your vaginal tissues will plump, soften, and become more balanced. These improvements “prime the pump,” so to speak, to help restore your body’s normal lubrication response.

For most women, it takes just three, quick, in-office ThermiVa treatments to reverse the effects of vaginal atrophy, reestablish normal vaginal function, and get back to pain-free sexual intimacy.

Besides being quick, easy, and painless, ThermiVa doesn’t require any downtime, meaning you can resume normal activities right after your session. For best results, you should postpone having sex for two or three days.

You don’t have to let normal hormonal changes affect your vaginal health or ruin your sex life. Call the California Wellness Institute office at 760-636-4171 to schedule an appointment.