Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush

Yeah, I mean it was... I could say financially if I didn't have my medical exemption card it would cost a fortune to go and get prescriptions, alongside all the other medications I'm on as well, you know, and I can imagine that that really stacks up for a lot of people if they are constantly getting... like you're always having to go back to a GP, and especially with the hikes in prescription charges, and the assumption that just because it’s something that when... well, some people get on kind of a short-term basis, there’s no allowances for recurrent thrush in terms of the prescription charges, so like you'll just have to pay whatever it is now, like £9.85, every single time you go, and if like you say you know if you're getting anything between five and 10 times in 12 months, I mean like it’s so much money, so yeah, if I didn't have a medical exemption card it would cost me a fortune, and especially in a current you know cost of living crisis, I imagine that they may make some people choose between being able to afford a prescription and being able to afford food, which should not be... that should not happen.

Yes, it’s so expensive. For example, you can go to the pharmacy, I think the cheapest you can get is I think from £9, when you’re getting this medication, and I think the most expensive I bought was... I think it’s slightly over £16 now, £18, I think this is the gel where you apply it I think with an application inside, I think that was one of the most expensive that I’ve bought, and even when I was checking on the shelf, there were some pills, and I think they were about 30‑something pounds, or something, 40‑something pounds, so it’s... you end up just buying, so it means that probably during the course of the year, I’ve spent over £200 trying to deal with this issue, so it’s... it’s very expensive. I can’t do the things that I like and wanted to do on that day because probably I’ve spent already £20 just on this medication, yeah, so it does affect my social life as well, and my mental health.

It’s a tenner, it’s still a tenner. But it’s not... like you said, it’s not a viable... like I don’t feel it’s a viable option because I suppose by the time you get to see a GP, like over a week later, and it’s just what you... [sighs] do you... don’t want to sit with it for a week, so it... the... the cost difference is marginal, £3 between a prescription and a... and buying it over the counter, but the difference is if you’re going to get a GP you’d have to wait forever and you’d have had it for a week by then, whereas if you just go and buy it at the pharmacy, it’s really good, you can get it at the pharmacy full stop, isn’t it? And if you get it from a pharmacy then it’s... you can get it that day, can’t you?

I was doing the things as much as I could to kind of prevent... to prevent it coming on because I knew that as soon as I went to the doctor’s, every time it would be: “Well, have you done this, are you doing this, are you using scented this, are you using scented that?” and it’s: “No.” So I kind of use those because again obviously I can’t afford to be buying the Canestens and the fluconazole on a regular basis, and I... so I always seem to have it to a degree, like at least once a month I’ll get the symptoms, which I don’t tend to treat anymore if it’s... I’ll just kind of put up with the little bit... bit of an itch and do the wiggle on my chair and what have you, and maybe put a liner on, but every couple of months I’ll have like a really bad flare-up where I’ll go and buy some... like a full duo, so I’ll get the cream and the thing, and one way that I know that I’ve definitely got it as well is because the... the cream tends to really sting when you put it on, so... yeah.

My partner's just like, 'Go on, just get them if it’s helping,' and I was like 'they’re very expensive for a little bottle,' yeah, it’s just... well, because I was really struggling the last few months, I was like, ‘I need them, I'm going to see if it helps,’ and these ones have, but like I said it’s... it’s a very expensive... it’s just very expensive, [baby coos]  it’s not something I can do long term even though my partner’s like, 'Oh my gosh, it’s your health you know, you need it,' and things like that, but I'm just sort of like, 'No, I'd rather spend that money on the kids.' You know, there’s other things and I don't think I should be spending that much every month for something that I don't think I caused, you know it's the... it’s just... it's one of those things, it’s... yeah, the cost of it is not good.

When I Google it, it looks like the people who have the answers are on Harley Street, and there’s all these testimonies that like these women went to this clinic and it fixed their body and now they've never had thrush again, and then I would Google it and all of these clinics were like the consultation is like £500 and then your follow-up consultation is another £500 and... and I was... and like I'm trying to be a fucking musician and an actress on like 10p a year, and I couldn't go, and I was desperately wanted to go to the posh clinics where all the testimonials were like, ‘I'm cured,’ but I never went because I never had the money to, and by the time I had started to get anything near the money to, it was better, ish, but... but yeah, I think money was a huge... I definitely... I definitely got the sense that if I was richer, I would have been able to fix it faster.

So yeah, I think money played a huge part, well, yeah, I think money played a pretty big part. I wonder if I would have... but equally, I don't know, I see people now pour money down the drains of people who say they going to cure their problems on Harley Street and then you're like, ‘I don't know if that’s actually fixed it any faster than the NHS’; so, who can say.

I did find somebody who was doing research on... I say ‘research’, they... they did something on... and it was on Instagram, and they were like offering this programme of how to manage it, but it... it just made me think it was a bit of a money-making scheme that... I just thought, you know, if I can’t find the information out there that’s concrete, how is this person selling a £400 retreat for like teaching you now how to manage it, but no... no like support groups or anything like that I saw. And it did kind of appear, so I’m only on Instagram, that there was like... there was like a hashtag that may be start... was starting to get used, so it felt like that might be something that would be coming in the future, or there was like networks kind of, you know, starting to form now.

At work I have had to sort of like walk off my own station to go and sort of like get a cold compress, put more cream on, hide the cream in work just in case it fell out my bag, and I would be embarrassed. So yeah, to be honest, yeah, I have you know... even though I’d talk about it, I wouldn’t like to show it, if you know what I mean? You know, yeah, so... but I have had to... to come off, instead of breaktime, I’ve had to come out of my own worktime to sort it out. Even walking, you know, would just be like, ‘oh my God, this is like agony,’ so yeah, there’s been a few times in work where it’s affected me, yeah, absolutely.

Now that I think about it, now that I've... I've got... I now work in childcare, I'm like a teaching assistant, so that would probably be a problem there because I'm like, ‘I don't want to snap at children,’ I have to be like very calm at my job because I have 30 four-year-olds shouting at me all the time, so that’s the only time I can see it kind of having a negative impact because I would like to be nice and calm, presentable teacher mode, and not getting stroppy about things that don't really matter.