ITV Lorraine doctor says women 'blindsided' by three little known symptoms

Dr Amir Khan, a regular on ITV's Lorraine, has suggested that recurring toilet symptoms may not necessarily indicate a UTI. Speaking on the show today (October 16), the health expert advised viewers to stop requesting antibiotics from their doctors and instead, ask for cream.

The doctor revealed around 30 millions people across the UK currently suffer from symptoms of the menopause or are menopausal or peri-menopausal. With it being World Menopause day, Dr Khan said that many women feel they are "completely blindsided by their symptoms" with 41% say they feel "lonely and discarded at the time of the menopause" with the doctor warning that there is "a lot of work to be done when it comes to dealing with the menopause."

The menopause is defined as 12 consecutive months without having a period and is caused when there is a natural decline in your sex hormones produced by the ovaries which is called oestrogen. "You can get it through medical treatment or surgical treatment that affect your ovaries - that’s called a medical or surgical menopause", he explains.

"Now the peri-menopause is the time leading up to menopause. It can start as early as your 30s and as late as your 50s and it's the decline in oestrogen", he adds. The way symptoms occur though is not linear and is described as a "roller coaster of hormones which affect other hormones". Some of the hormones impacted can control your mood so you get "fluctuations of things like irregular period, mood swings, hot hot flushes. But they come and go and you think 'am I in menopause? Am I not?' and it’s because of these fluctuations."

Talking about the lesser known symptoms, he says that there are 50, if not more, different symptoms you can go through and "some of the ones that women come and talk to me about that we don’t talk enough about is something called Genital Urinary Syndrome.

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"So one of the jobs of oestrogen is to keep the skin of the vagina and vulva nice and plump, soft and moist and when oestrogen levels go down, the vagina becomes very dry and we call it atrophy and that I can give you an itchy vagina, pain during intercourse. But one of the common symptoms is urinary symptoms so you’re going to the toilet more."

With symptoms like stinging when you are on the toilet and needing to go more and more, these overlapping symptoms can be mistaken for a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) by ourselves and even GPs. Because of this, people are simply and often prescribed antibiotics to clear the infection. "They’re [GPs] not treating the underlying cause. So if you’re getting recurrent UTIs go and see your doctor and ask for Oestrogen cream. That’s what you need to put down there, plump of the vagina vulva more, less UTIs, less sore vaginas - that’s what we want."