Let’s talk about some embarrassing menopause symptoms that nobody likes to talk about.
Menopause brings lots of annoying symptoms like hot flashes and insomnia, brain fog, and wrinkles but there are lesser-known symptoms. Some of these can become embarrassing problems if you don’t know how to deal with them.
Body Odor
First, Body Odor. When menopausal women’s hormones start to fall, they may notice an increase in body odor. That’s because as estrogen falls, there’s more testosterone freed. The increase in testosterone feeds the bacteria in the armpits and groin leading to some pretty foul body odor.
Making sure that your estrogen and progesterone levels are balanced can help to reduce free testosterone. You can also wash the areas with the tea tree oil based soap to help decrease the bacteria in the area.
Urine
The second embarrassing menopause problem is leaking urine. As your estrogen declines, your bladder neck becomes weaker, you lose elasticity, and you don’t have the vaginal support for healthy bladder function. So even if your bladder is not excessively full, you can have leaking before you need to urinate. You feel like you’ve completely emptied your bladder, but when you stand up, you leak a little bit more, and that’s because of the weakness in the bladder neck.
What is most helpful is to directly apply topical estrogen. I recommend estriol vaginal cream applied to the anterior aspect of the vagina, where the urethra is, to help to reestrogenize the area, increase collagen, and improve bladder neck function. Combining a topical vaginal estrogen with Kegel exercises makes a huge difference in getting back bladder control by improving vaginal tone. Vibrators can be useful to improve vaginal tone and help with urinary incontinence.
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Vaginal Itching
The third most embarrassing menopausal problem is vaginal itching. Vaginal itching in menopause is caused by two issues. First is atrophy, thinning of the tissue from low estrogen levels. Second is vaginal dysbiosis, an imbalance in the normal bacteria that’s in the vagina, causing an overgrowth of other bacteria and even yeast.
The best way to deal with vaginal itching is using a topical vaginal estrogen to thicken up the tissue and make it a friendly environment for lactobacillus acidophilus to move in and protect you. In the meantime, coconut oil can help soothe the tissues and has an antimicrobial, antifungal effect.
Pruritus
And the fourth most embarrassing menopausal problem is pruritus. As your estrogen starts to fall, your nerves become more sensitive. You also have spikes in cortisol, which can cause you to get itchy, and even develop rashes, like urticaria. The constant itching can be quite disturbing. Making sure again that your progesterone levels are well balanced can help with pruritus.
Antihistamines can provide temporary relief but they can be a little drying so be sure to moisturize your skin daily especially after a bath. A good moisturizer can make a big difference in the itching as well.
If you have any questions about embarrassing menopause problems, please join us in our free Hormone Reboot Training.
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5432467
What are the most embarrassing menopause symptoms?
Beyond the well-known hot flashes and insomnia, menopause produces a cluster of less-discussed symptoms that many women find distressing and difficult to bring up with healthcare providers. The four most commonly underreported include changes in body odor, urinary leakage, vaginal itching, and generalized skin itching (pruritus). All four are hormonally driven — rooted in the same estrogen and progesterone decline that drives the more commonly discussed symptoms — and all four respond to approaches that address the underlying hormonal and hypothalamic changes rather than just managing symptoms on the surface.
Why does menopause cause body odor?
The change in body odor that many women notice in perimenopause and menopause is driven by a shift in the testosterone-to-estrogen ratio. As estrogen falls, free testosterone rises proportionally, and testosterone stimulates the apocrine glands — the sweat glands concentrated in the armpits and groin that produce the sweat most associated with body odor. This testosterone-stimulated sweat is metabolized by skin bacteria into compounds with a stronger, more pungent odor than eccrine sweat. Balancing estrogen and progesterone levels reduces the relative testosterone excess that drives this change. In the meantime, washing affected areas with tea tree oil-based soap reduces the bacterial load responsible for converting sweat into odor compounds.
Why do women leak urine during menopause?
Urinary leakage in menopause is one of the most common — and least discussed — aspects of genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), the cluster of changes affecting the bladder, urethra, and vaginal tissues as estrogen declines. Estrogen maintains the collagen and elasticity of the bladder neck, urethra, and pelvic floor tissues. As estrogen falls, these tissues thin, lose structural support, and weaken — resulting in stress incontinence (leaking with coughing, sneezing, or physical movement), overflow incontinence (leaking when the bladder feels empty but isn’t fully contracted), or a mixed pattern of both. The most effective treatment directly addresses the estrogen deficiency in the tissue — topical estriol cream applied to the anterior vaginal wall near the urethra helps restore collagen, improve tissue integrity, and strengthen bladder neck function. Kegel exercises combined with topical estrogen produce significantly better outcomes than either intervention alone.
What causes vaginal itching in menopause?
Vaginal itching in menopause has two primary drivers that often occur together. The first is vaginal atrophy — the thinning and drying of vaginal tissue that results from estrogen deficiency, which makes the tissue fragile, easily irritated, and prone to microabrasions. The second is vaginal dysbiosis, an imbalance in the vaginal microbiome. Estrogen normally supports a vaginal environment dominated by Lactobacillus species, which maintain an acidic pH that suppresses overgrowth of bacteria and yeast. When estrogen falls, Lactobacillus populations decline, pH rises, and opportunistic bacteria and yeast can proliferate — producing itching, unusual discharge, and odor. Topical vaginal estrogen addresses both drivers by restoring tissue integrity and recreating the hormonal environment that allows Lactobacillus to reestablish. Coconut oil applied topically provides short-term soothing relief through its antimicrobial and antifungal properties while the tissue is healing.
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