Kodi very slow when connected through VPN

Hi – my Kodi is very, very slow (17.3 release) when browsing and searching Add-on:YouTube – while connected to any VPN server.

Without VPN there is no issue.

I am running Kodi on Win7/64 with NordVPN as my provider.

I do not have any speed issues when connected to same VPN servers (UK/CH/DE/NL) without Kodi.

This leads me to believe this is something to do with Kodi. VPN connectivity actually was fine until recently.

Does anyone have seen similar issues? Any idea how to resolve this?

Thank you!