Your health changes over the course of your life, due in part to the processes of aging, which includes your vaginal health and signs of gynecological aging. Whether menopause, childbirth, or some other condition or event has left you with declining intimate well-being and vaginal health, we want you to know that you don’t have to shrug your shoulders and accept the outcome. There are solutions.

At Santé Aesthetics and Wellness, our medical director, Marcea Wiggins, ND, and her highly skilled team are big believers that women should have the same access to intimate and sexual health services that men enjoy. Your sex life is important and we’re here to help.

This month, we review the warning signs of gynecological aging
and declining vaginal health and the exciting technology we offer that can help restore your quality of life.

WHY THE DECLINE?

A woman’s vaginal tissues undergo considerable changes as she makes her way through life.

Let’s start with one of the more obvious factors when it comes to these changes — childbirth. Whether you’ve had one child or several, your vaginal canal has performed the seemingly impossible by passing a new life into the world. Even if you delivered your baby by cesarean section, just carrying a baby in the uterus for 9 months takes its toll on weakening all the structures in the area of the pelvic floor.

While some women’s tissues are able to bounce back each time, others are left with vaginal tissues, both internally and externally, that have lost some of their tone and elasticity. Women can experience many side effects from this but one of those that is most impactful is stress incontinence.

Another major influence is menopause. When you pass out of your reproductive years, you lose a considerable amount of estrogen. This reproductive hormone plays no small role in the health of your vaginal tissues, ensuring that they remain adequately supple and lubricated to encourage enjoyable intercourse that can lead to a healthy childbirth.

The absence of these hormones can dramatically affect the quality of the vaginal tissue which can begin to thin and dry out, making sexual activity and intercourse uncomfortable, if not painful.

This condition has been traditionally referred to as vaginal atrophy, but given the negative connotation of the word “atrophy,” we now use genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM). Not only does the new moniker eliminate the word atrophy, but GSM also allows for problems in your urinary tract, such as frequent urinary tract infections.

GSM affects up to 84% of postmenopausal women in various ways, but vaginal dryness is usually at the top of the list, followed by vaginal itchiness and burning.

Outside of menopause and childbirth, your vaginal health can be influenced by certain treatments, such as the radiation and chemotherapy associated with cancer treatments.

All of these things contribute to the loss of collagen and elastin, pelvic floor strength, and the quality of gynecological health.

FIGHTING BACK WITH TECHNOLOGY

Men may have their little blue pill, and many other treatments for erectile dysfunction (ED), and we’re now able to offer women exciting technologies to help with signs of gynecological aging. One revolutionary technology is called Juliet® which can help restore vaginal health. With the Juliet system, we deliver targeted erbium-yag laser waves and energy into your vaginal tissues and surrounding pelvic floor that encourages:

  • Collagen production
  • Revascularization
  • Re-epithelialization, or resurfacing of your tissue
  • Tightening of your pelvic floor muscles

The combination of these processes promotes healthier vaginal tissues that should resolve the problems you’re facing, from vaginal dryness to itching and burning, sexual dysfunction and even helping stress incontinence. With trends these days in personal grooming practices revealing more of the internal and external labia, one can also use Juliet to remodel, resurface and tighten the external vaginal tissues(your genitalia) as well as the vaginal canal.

The Juliet treatments are noninvasive and quick, and there’s no downtime afterward. In most cases, we recommend two to three 30-minute treatments, which we space 6-8 weeks apart to allow time for your tissues to respond and grow. As you progress through your Juliet treatments, you should realize gradual results that greatly improve the quality of your intimate health from: increased sexual function, natural lubrication, and reduction in stress leaking. Once you have had 2-3 treatments based on your symptoms, and gotten great results, you can then just maintain those great results with a single treatment per year for most people, although many see benefits for years to come. Maintenance recommendations are always customized to the individual, as all of our treatment protocols are.

Rejoice! There is something that can help with those signs of gynecological aging that are lowering your quality of life that is relatively simple, painless, and accessible with the Juliet®. To schedule Juliet treatments or for a consultation, contact our office in Portland, Oregon.