Karin’s Story: “I Thought I Just Had to Accept This”

Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Karin, a long time user of Pleage’s HydraHer, to talk about her experience with vaginal dryness and what changed for her over time. Karin is warm, funny, and refreshingly honest. The kind of woman who says what so many of us think, but never quite say out loud.

Samantha:
To start, can you take me back to when you first even heard about vaginal dryness?

Karin:
Okay, so, gosh, I can’t even remember how many years ago, but my best friend and I, we are both artists, and we were part of this group. There was an older woman there. Everyone else had left, we were having coffee, and all of a sudden, she started talking about her very dry vagina.

My friend and I were shocked to the core, because we’d never even heard of a dry vagina at that point, thankfully.

And when we left, we were like, what?! What is this?

Samantha:
I know exactly what you mean. It’s not exactly a topic we’re prepared for.

Karin:
Cut to years later, we both, unfortunately, ended up with dry vaginas.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the testimonial video I did for HydraHer, where I sort of jokingly said, you know, ‘this is not a conversation you’re going to have over a glass of wine.’

And what I recall from that earlier conversation is we were quite disgusted by the whole thing. Because she was going into all sorts of details, and we were like, what is this?

From that reaction we both had, I think it’s something you have to be quite careful talking about to women who haven’t yet experienced it. Because it can sound quite out there.

Samantha:
There really is a time and a place. And a way to talk about it that doesn’t make anyone feel embarrassed.

Karin:
Yeah. But looking back now, I realise she obviously really needed to talk to somebody about it. We listened, we nodded, we didn’t show our internal feelings. It wasn’t until afterwards that we were like, wait, what even is a dry vagina?

Samantha:
And then, for you, when did it start to become your reality?

Karin:
So fast forward, my menopause was a bit strange. Unbeknownst to me, I’d had for many years, and still have, a chronic progressive form of arthritis, but I didn’t know.

I ended up getting worse and worse. Then I ended up with sepsis. I was in intensive care, and when I came out of that, I didn’t have any periods for quite a while. Almost a year later, I had a period, and then that was it. They finished. So I was 50.

I only had one night sweat. I used to get hot flushes, but I didn’t suffer in any way like some of my friends did. I’m 64 next week, and I came through it in every other way, I think, pretty easily. Probably because nature had given me enough crap to deal with.

Samantha:
You really have been through enough.

Karin:
A lot of it was kind of hidden by everything else that was going on.

I used to joke with my husband and say, oh my, I get tighter and tighter. But then it got to a point where that actually wasn’t pleasurable.

And then also, I’d get these terrible pains. I remember trying to explain it to physios, because the type of arthritis I have can be helped by physiotherapy. I was trying to explain I had these terrible pains in my pelvic bone, and I couldn’t really explain where.

As time went on, penetration got more and more painful. Over the years it just got so bad. Then my vaginal area, the exterior area, all dried up. If you wore certain underwear and it rubbed, it would make you sore. Then with penetration, my skin would rip.

Samantha:
How did that affect you and your husband as a couple?

Karin:
Thankfully, I’ve got a wonderful husband. Don’t tell him I said that, because I don’t want his head to get too big.

There are other ways to be intimate. But it was always in the back of my head, oh no, what happens if he wants penetration and I can’t? That would freeze me up.

And for him, it was really difficult, because he was always so scared of hurting me. So it kind of made both of us wary.

Samantha:
Even in a trusting relationship, that fear can sit there.

Karin:
Absolutely.

And the other thing for me was that I’d gone from this sort of plump, lovely, shall we say, ripe fig, to this shrivelled up currant that belonged in the back of the baking drawer. I found that embarrassing.

Samantha:
And how do you feel now?

Karin:
Much more feminine, womanly, now. I’ve got my mojo back.

Samantha:
I love hearing that.

Samantha:
How did you find HydraHer? Were you hunting for something?

Karin:
I’ve asked for medical help. I now live in Italy, I’ve been here for 5 years.

With the NHS, they would give me a prescription for something, but nothing really helped. And there wasn’t anyone explaining what it was.

It got so bad that I made an appointment to go and see a gynaecologist. I went privately first, then I did it through the system. With the smear, she could barely get the speculum in, and it was so painful.

She’s lathering it up with something, and it felt like trying to force something that just wouldn’t open. And I bled a lot because it was so dry.

She was very sweet, and she said, ‘you have to take pessaries, but you’re going to have to do this for the rest of your life.’ But they didn’t help. They just didn’t do anything.

After that, I honestly doubted anything would help.

And then I started to see the interviews with the women using HydraHer. That was what did it for me. Because at first I might have thought, oh, I don’t know if that’s real or not. Then I was listening to the ones where you could see their eyes, and they were saying, I never thought this was going to happen.

I thought, they can’t be actresses. It feels too genuine.

To me it was a lot of money. I really had to think about it. But then I thought, I’ve got to try it.

Samantha:
And what happened when you did?

Karin:
The first thing that happened to me wasn’t so much the lubrication. It was my libido. All of a sudden, it went BOOM, and I was like, wow.

That was the first thing that happened to me.

I said to my husband, there was a definite change, a definite switch.

I was taking 2 in the morning, 2 in the evening, for I think 10 days or so, and then I continued with taking two a day.

Now, we’ve had penetrative sex with no lubrication, which is amazing. I never thought that would ever happen again. And I’m no longer like a crispy currant.

Samantha:
If you had to sum it up for someone who’s sceptical, what would you say?

Karin:
I was sceptical as well. I really was. But I am delighted to say that it does work.

I don’t know if it works for everybody, but it certainly works for me. I didn’t think anything would ever reverse what had happened. I thought it was something I had to live with.

And it’s not just about sex either. Even if you don’t have sex, it’s not comfortable having a dry vaginal area.

If your underwear rubs, or when you have a wee and you dry yourself, even the softest tissue paper can be sore or stick. It’s horrible. It’s just not nice.

Samantha:
That’s such an important point. Comfort matters, full stop.

Karin:
When you’ve asked doctors, and you’ve Googled, and you’ve bought creams, and you’ve used lubricants, and nothing works, eventually you just think, oh, okay, well, this is it then. I have to accept this.

So, finding this product, for me, has been an absolute life changer. It really has made a difference.

If this feels familiar, I want you to know you’re not being dramatic, and you’re not too old to care about comfort. HydraHer is a natural, hormone free supplement designed to support intimate hydration and comfort with a simple capsule routine. If you’re curious, you can read Karin’s story again, take what resonates, and explore HydraHer when you feel ready. No pressure. Just options.