Jody

Age at interview: 26

Brief Outline:

Jody had recurrent thrush for 5 years beginning when she was pregnant. She saw multiple healthcare professionals but felt it was difficult to be taken seriously. Today, she still experiences thrush but has found a routine that works to keep her symptoms more in control.

Background:

Jody (she/they) is a bisexual woman who is married with two children (6 and 4). She works as a Community Developer and RSE educator. Her background is white British. Interview clips are read by an actor.

More about me...

Jody began having thrush in 2015 when she was pregnant with her first child at 19. Since then, she experienced symptoms almost every month until 2019. Sometimes there would be a few months without symptoms, while other months the infection wouldn’t clear up and be there “constantly”.

Jody has felt that recurrent thrush was “soul-destroying”, and her mental health suffered. Recurrent thrush affected Jody’s daily activities such as wearing jeans or riding a bike. Her intimate relationships have also been affected with sex being a “massive trigger” for discomfort and she feels guilty for not being sexually active with her partner. Financially, the treatment is expensive.

At first, Jody tried to self-treat her symptoms with over-the-counter medication. She tried various medications from the pharmacy. While pregnant, Jody could not take oral antifungal pill and she was given different information based on the healthcare professionals she spoke to regarding pessaries. She remembers that healthcare professionals took thrush less seriously in pregnancy because they were wary about treatment and took an approach of “just give it some time”.

Jody visited her GP a couple of times, but found that recurrent thrush was not well understood and was assumed to be a condition with a “quick-fix”. The GP performed swabs which came back positive for thrush. However, Jody felt that the thrush was always treated as “isolated incidents” and not addressed as a recurring issue. Jody felt frustrated having to repeat the “same story” and wanted to be given a plan of action to prevent recurrent thrush instead of addressing it each time it returned.

As the months went on, Jody visited a sexual health clinic where she felt taken “more seriously” as they performed more thorough investigations and confirmed the thrush diagnosis before giving antifungal treatment.

A nurse at the sexual health clinic referred Jody to a gynaecologist. Jody says this gynaecologist was “the best” and wanted to understand the “full picture” by asking many questions and recognising how it was affecting her life.

After a while, Jody began to “give up hope” as she felt her body was becoming resistant to the medication. She worried that she would experience recurrent thrush for the rest of her life.

To manage recurrent thrush, Jody became aware of ingredients in lube, condoms, and shower products that may cause vulval irritation. She wears breathable underwear which she changes after exercising or on hot days, and avoids wearing thongs.

However, in 2019, Jody found that her symptoms became more manageable. While she still gets thrush more than “the average person”, she has fewer flare-ups and feels more in control. Jody has developed a routine which works for her, including washing right after sex, looking after her vaginal health, and removing sugar from her diet. Jody encourages others not to be afraid to have conversations with friends, family, and healthcare professionals.

Her advice to healthcare professionals is to look at the whole picture of patient experiences to help prevent flare-ups and break the cycle of recurrent thrush. She stresses the importance of looking into each patient’s symptoms to rule out other conditions such as lichen sclerosis. She recommends that healthcare professionals recommend moisturisers and creams that can reduce irritation and avoid products that can cause a flare up. 

Jody was directed to not use oral antifungal medication during pregnancy and worried about whether pessaries were harmful (read by an actor).

I think the only difference in terms of treatments was that I couldn’t take the... they wouldn’t let me take the oral pill, I think it all had to be done through the creams. I don’t... from memory, I don’t think they allowed me to use some of the pessaries as well, or... it was either that or they had told me I had to maybe use like an internal cream, I think, so yeah, the treatment was slightly different and obviously the approach is kind of... I don’t know, I.... I don’t feel like they’re as kind of supportive because obviously they’re a bit wary of you using treatments with pregnancy, and I don’t think they fully know you know what... what’s sort of safe for things, because some people would say, ‘oh, you know, yeah, you can use the pessary, that’s absolutely fine;’ other people would say, ‘oh, you’ve got to insert it yourself,’ like using your fingers; some would just say it wasn’t advised at all. 

After having multiple positive swabs, Jody was surprised that each episode of thrush was approached as an isolated incident and not diagnosed or treated as a recurrent problem (read by an actor).

There was... they never gave me like an official diagnosis but they would say like, ‘OK, so we've you know looked at your swabs and there’s... you know there’s... there’s... the sample’s come back with... you know, that you've got thrush, so you know we're going to give you this,’ and there was never... it was never sort of a... and never like a label or diagnosis where they said, ‘oh, you've got recurring thrush, this is... you know, this is how we deal with that,’ it was more like, ‘we can see you've got a history of having repeated episodes of thrush,’ and each instance was kind of... although they were able to say that, it was all kind of dealt with as like isolated episodes rather than looking at the bigger picture. Because I was like half-expecting them to put me on sort of some medication like... to take for a while, but they never did, it always like, ‘we're going to look at this as like a sort of isolated incident,’ even though they... even though that they knew that I had had... obviously had of sort of these episodes, repeated episodes for years.

Jody said recurrent thrush was “constantly on her mind” (read by an actor).

It... and I think it definitely affected like my mental health because I was just getting really down about it, obviously when it starts to spread into other areas of your life, like intimacy and... don't know, just your general like level of happiness, when it’s constantly something that’s on your mind, you're just like you get so fed up with it that it then... yeah, it does affect your mental health and it can be quite challenging because there’s... there’s not always a quick fix, sort of thing, especially when like the treatments aren't working as they're meant to for you, or you know you've just got over one flare-up and now you're having another one, and you're like, ‘just give me a break,’ sort of thing, it’s just... yeah, it’s quite... I don't know, even I'd go as far as saying a bit soul-destroying at times. I don't think unless you go through it, you can really realise how much it can just disrupt your life and make it so hard.

So yeah, I'm in a... a greater position now because it was... yeah, it was destroying my life if I'm honest, it was... it was really hard and I just was kind of like, ‘is this my life now, is this what it’s going to be like?’ and it was, yeah, sort of affecting all sorts of different areas, like obviously my relationship and just my day-to-day happiness of just constantly being like uncomfortable, it was just... it was like hell really. But yeah, that’s it in a nutshell really.

Jody said they sometimes downplay and hold back on saying to their partner how upset thrush makes them feel (read by an actor).

I did feel comfortable talking to my partner, although it’s kind... it’s kind of met with this kind of like... obviously I would have to kind of explain to him, you know, ‘oh, I’m having like another flare-up, so sorry I’m really not kind of down for like doing anything intimate with you today,’ but you’d kind of find ways to not laugh it off, but... I guess I probably didn’t portray as much like the depths of how bad it was actually affecting me and then the kind of the guilty... like the guilty feelings that I had then because I wasn’t able to be like sexually active and stuff and you just think, ‘oh, if only he kind of knew what is was... it’s not just me like being kind of difficult or making excuses,’ although I knew that he could he see like the stress that it was having on me, and I don’t think I probably... I’d let on as much as was... as what was going on in my head at the time with how bad things were and the effect that it was actually having on me mentally.

Jody has thought at times about how her partner could be with someone without recurrent thrush and worried about the impact on their relationship (read by an actor).

I think it just comes down to like a bit of embarrassment and shame and just being like you know, ‘you could be other people who... who don’t have these issues and it would be all simple and straightforward, but instead you’re like you know with me and now you’ve got to deal with this,’ and how is this going to affect our relationship? You kind of hold on to a bit of that I guess because you don’t want to... I don’t know, make it seem more, don’t know, intense, and make... make more of a deal than it already is I... I guess.

Jody explained that others might think recurrent thrush has a “quick fix” and not understand the embarrassment of it repeatedly coming back (read by an actor).

I think because people just assume, ‘oh well, it’s just this thing that you... you know, you can just go get a cream and that’s going to fix it and that’s...’ you know, it’s as simple as that, but people just don’t really understand like the implications of what it’s actually like to live with this condition that just keeps coming back, and back, and back, as well as just like the stigma of it as well, because obviously it’s like an embarrassing condition to have, it’s not something you know that’s really talked about.

Jody explained that sexual health clinics could offer more thorough testing and examinations (read by an actor).

Yeah, it’s quite hard to remember exact because I have seen so many different people. Like I have... I've been to like my GP before, and that was probably the first interactions that I had a GP, and at the sexual health clinic. And yeah, the... I think the sexual health clinic were a lot better because they were more kind of thorough with their investigations, like they would do like a physical examination, they would go and send off tests, they would in the end start looking at like you know samples like under a microscope.

Jody had positive experiences with a thorough gynaecologist who took time to understand the impact of thrush on their life (read by an actor).

I think actually one of the last gynaecologists that I saw, I think she was actually really... she was probably the best person that I saw throughout the whole kind of... the journey, and she was really quite thorough and was like keen to actually you know ask so many questions, maybe too... maybe what I thought was too many questions at the time because they... some of them seemed really random, but that was really appreciated like to have that time to really... to be understood and to kind of get the full picture across that it wasn't just you know this little problem, like this was something that was really like affecting me big time and was, yeah, really getting me down, really you know affecting relationships and making my life, yeah, quite... quite challenging.

Jody felt they had become more resistant to antifungal creams (read by an actor).

So, I think at the start it was just a case of getting like the topical creams that you just pick up from the pharmacy, and I think that would kind of work as a temporary solution, but I think my body, after a while, became a bit sort of resistant to it and it just wasn't even touching it, and then from there it went into more like the internal stuff like using the... all the different types of pessaries that you can get and then the oral pills as well, yeah.

Jody questioned whether this was an issue that they should try to keep getting help for, or just accept as part of life (read by an actor).

I'm not quite sure, it’s hard to remember exactly kind of my feelings at the time, but I think I definitely started to just almost accept that this was just who I was, ‘like this is you know... this is a... the condition that I have and I have to live with this... this is me for life now, this is you know... do I even bother like getting help anymore, do I just kind of...?’ Yeah, I think there’s this kind of point where you come to, you're just so fed up with it that you just start to accept that you've got this problem and that you should be putting up with it, I think... yeah.

Jody felt they were now able to be more in control of recurrent thrush after making some hygiene and product changes (read by an actor).

Slowly I've noticed like a change in that I wasn't getting flare-ups so often, and I guess now I've probably found like a little routine that works for me in terms of like you know my hygiene and the products that I use, and even just you know sex and stuff, like making sure that I go to the toilet after sex, and make... making sure that like I have a little like rinse off afterwards, so just little things that I now do which can prevent me from having like a... another episode, so yeah, it’s been really... well, it’s changed my life really because it... that’s how bad it... it kind of was, it was, yeah, just getting in the way of everything; whereas now like I feel like I have more control, which is kind of what I wanted I guess when I was going to the appointments, that’s what I was you know asking for in the end, it was like I need control of this, like this thing is controlling me, like I don’t know what more I can do.

Jody warned about potential misinformation, especially in the booming feminine hygiene industry (read by an actor).

I think it’s hard. I think there is some brilliant information out there, but you have to kind of delve through it all and you know like separate the truth round all the kind of... well, I think there’s... the... obviously you know like the feminine hygiene industry is like absolutely booming at the moment and so you can... especially when you're quite desperate, you know you find yourself looking at products and you're thinking, ‘oh, this could be the solution, like it’s got good reviews, like maybe this is it,’ but yeah, I think it’s hard to know... I think now I'm sort of more kind of clued-up on you know vulval health and vagina health and all of that stuff, like I know now what to look out for and what’s kind of a... looks a little bit shady.

Jody emphasised the importance of seeing healthcare professionals (read by an actor).

I think not being afraid to kind of you know like stand your ground with you know healthcare professionals to get your point across and to... to really explain how things are affecting you. I would say also the importance of actually going to see someone about like recurring thrush, and just... to be honest any kind of thrush symptoms: I think it’s always worth getting checked out rather than self-treating. I know obviously that is an option that people can just go to pharmacy, or a supermarket, and can you know pick up a treatment and self-treat, but you never know. I know obviously I've had it sort of... you know, I've had all my tests and stuff come back so I knew that I had thrush previously, but a lot of people are just treating themselves for symptoms that it might not be that and equally that can be like really not good... good for your body and could be you know something that you're... a... a symptom that you could actually be missing out on that could be something a bit more you know dangerous.

Jody advised others to speak with a trusted family member or friend (read by an actor).

And also, yeah, having... like don't be afraid to have conversations with you know like family members or friends and stuff like that because I think although they might not be able to... well they may not have gone through like exactly the same thing as you like, we do know that the majority of people with vulvas have experienced at least one episode of thrush in their life, and like, so just being able to have that kind of... I don't know, interaction with someone to make you feel like you're not some kind of... I don't know, freak, or like that this is a normal thing. I think, yeah, there’s some kind of, having those conversations which can really help you to... to kind of deal with what you're going through and to just... yeah, to release some of that because you know you do, yeah, feel quite embarrassed by it at times, and it is quite hard, and it’s like you're trying to carrying this like secret sort of thing which is... is quite hard to carry, so yeah, like trying to speak with someone about it, you know someone who you can... you can trust, I suppose.

Jody stressed the importance of looking at the “bigger picture” instead of just treating individual episodes (read by an actor).

Yeah, I guess my... mine would probably be like to really look at like the bigger picture. You know, look at all of these reoccurring episodes, and whilst obviously I understand the importance of treating each case like in isolation just to like you know determine for example if it is actually thrush that you're experiencing on that specific time, to kind of like look at it as a whole and how you can sort of prevent things from getting worse for people, rather than just giving them the one-off treatments when the flare-ups come about, like finding ways to help people to prevent the flare-ups and to break the cycle; I think, yeah, that would be my kind of advice I guess.