Don’t Skip This: Why Vulvar Self-Checks Matter
What is a vulvar exam? Certified menopause provider Jessica Bell explains why vulvar self-exams are important for identifying changes early and why openly communicating symptoms or concerns with your doctor matters.
Transcript:
Jessica Bell:
One more thing I would say is, get comfortable doing your own vulvar exam. You know, get the mirror out, take a look down there.
Check it out, get a baseline of what’s going on, and take a look every month or every few months, honestly. It’s true that when we go to a gynecologist, they’re not always doing a detailed vulvar exam. Sometimes it’s a bit of a situation of like, speculum, Pap smear, get in, get out, and we need to know our anatomy, so that way, we can monitor for changes as they occur over time, particularly maybe when clinicians aren’t helping us with that.
And it’s also true that sometimes we see our clinicians or gynecologists at this point every two years or sometimes more than that, and a lot of changes can happen during that time. So, getting comfortable taking a look for yourself with a mirror, I think, is a really important thing to do, and something that I want to empower women to do.
Jamie Forward:
Okay, and what are you looking for?
Jessica Bell:
Yeah, exactly. So, you look for color. So, the tissue I describe is pink, plump, and hydrated. That is a well-estrogenized tissue, and so, what you’re looking for is just that tissue quality. Kind of similar to tissue or skin on the rest of your body. Sometimes, we can kind of recognize when our skin is dehydrated, and so, taking a look, making sure that the skin appears pink, plump, and hydrated. I also recommend pulling back the clitoral hood.
Little do we know, as women, but the clitoral hood can adhere over the glans of the clitoris. It can become buried, and that can contribute to decreased sensation or actually sometimes an over-sensation, kind of like a piece of sand in the eye situation down there, which can be quite uncomfortable. So, making sure that you can pull back the clitoral hood, I do this when I do that, is very much recommended as well.
And then, yeah, looking for any sort of discolorations, moles are really common. We can have all sorts of little lumps and bumps as well that are typically all benign and common, but being able to identify those for yourself and then identify changes and then communicating that with a clinician or a provider, if they come up, is also important.
