Dyspareunia is the medical term for painful sexual intercourse. It is defined as recurrent or persistent genital pain that happens just before, during, or after intercourse. This health condition is more common in women, especially those who have gone through menopause.

Dyspareunia in menopause can be caused by both psychological and physical issues, and if those issues are not treated properly, then the condition may lead to various complications.

1. Diagnosis of dyspareunia
Like any other disease, if the underlying condition of dyspareunia is diagnosed early, then your doctor will easily be able to treat all the problems that are caused by the ailment.

The diagnostic exams for dyspareunia generally include:

• Doctor consultation

To know if the condition is being caused either by any disease or by an injury, your doctor may ask you about numerous things, such as the time when the pain began or the place where it is felt. He or she may also ask about your childbirth experiences or any surgical procedures you may have undergone recently.

• Pelvic examination

Through a thorough pelvic exam, your doctor will closely check for any kind of structural abnormality. He or she may also insert an electronic device called speculum for enabling a proper visual examination, which will help detect any sign of dyspareunia in menopause. To determine the location where the pain is being felt, your doctor might gently press the genitals.

• Pelvic ultrasound

It is a type of non-invasive diagnostic procedure that assists the doctor in evaluating the health of the organs in your pelvic area. A pelvic ultrasound generally produces some quick images that will help the doctor to find out if any of the organs are injured or affected by any infection or disease such as fibroids or endometriosis.

2. Treatment
The treatment options of the health condition usually depend on the cause and location of the pain.

Some of these options are:

• Desensitization therapy

Through this therapy, you will learn some techniques that can help you make your vaginal muscles more relaxed and decrease the pain that you are experiencing. Because of this reason, desensitization therapy is considered to be one of the most popular treatment options for dyspareunia in menopause.

• Medication

Medication is another quite popular treatment option. For the postmenopausal women, dyspareunia is considered to be caused by vaginal dryness, which occurs due to a low estrogen level. Thus, to treat this condition, you would have to apply topical estrogens directly to the skin of the vagina. Prasterone is another drug that is used quite commonly to treat the pain of dyspareunia in menopause. It generally comes in the form of a capsule, which you would have to place inside your vagina regularly to relieve the pain.

• Counselling therapy

If your doctor diagnoses any kind of psychological issue as the cause of dyspareunia, then he or she will ask you to go through a counselling therapy. This therapy will also help you to improve communication with your partner while having intercourse.

These are some of the ways in which dyspareunia is usually treated. However, treatment procedures generally depend on the underlying cause of the health condition. Thus, the treatment option that you will be undergoing can be different from someone else’s.