Kayla

Age at interview: 42

Brief Outline:

Kayla has had thrush for six years. She has tried various treatments, including a year-long course of fluconazole. After this treatment did not work, she was referred to a vulva dermatologist who diagnosed her with Lichen Sclerosus. Kayla continues to seek care and hopes that her symptoms will improve. 

Background:

Kayla (she/her) is a lesbian woman. She works as a receptionist. Her background is white British.

More about me...

Kayla has had thrush for six years. Her symptoms include “a lot of discharge”, itchiness, inflammation and redness. She remembers reading online that recurrent thrush was defined as four thrush episodes in a year, but feels that her symptoms “never cleared up” and are continual.

The “constant pain” of recurrent thrush impacts Kayla’s mental health. She finds it uncomfortable to sit down and enjoy activities like going to the cinema or having lunch with friends. Kayla says that she is unable to have a sex life due to the “constant infection” which makes her feel “dirty”. Kayla also worries that she is not “clean enough” which leads her to shower a couple of times a day.

Kayla finds it difficult to talk to friends who have only had thrush for a couple of days and worries about people knowing she has recurrent thrush. She feels there is stigma around recurrent thrush, which makes it embarrassing to call the doctor.

Kayla visited the GP and was prescribed antifungal tablets. She was told that her symptoms should clear in a week. However, after three weeks she still had symptoms and returned to the GP. The GP then prescribed a year-long course of fluconazole. During this time, Kayla also had bi-weekly swabs taken, which came back positive for thrush. Kayla would call the GP when the treatment was not working, but was instructed to continue the medication. She felt “quite ignored” by the GP and said that it was played down as “just thrush”.

After a year, Kayla was referred to a vulval dermatologist who was “amazing” and who she continues to see every six months. Kayla felt that this specialist referral took “quite a while” and that she had to “fight” for it. She felt that the dermatologist offered a treatment plan and provided Kayla with a “better understanding” of recurrent thrush. The dermatologist gave a “more thorough” examination and tested for sensitives to thrush. Kayla found out that her thrush had changed from the most common type of thrush to one called saccharomyces cerevisiae. She says that the healthcare professionals think she is dealing with multiple types of thrush, making it harder to treat.

Recently, Kayla received a diagnosis of Lichen Sclerosus. Kayla felt upset by this news and that she had recurrent thrush for so long before being referred and diagnosed.

In terms of treatment, the vulva dermatologist tried methods such as gentian violet every week. The treatment helped for a short amount of time. Once this treatment stopped working, Kayla was referred to a virologist to look for underlying causes. Currently, Kayla is on a long-term course of Nystatin. She has not yet noticed an improvement.

Kayla has also tried self-treatment and went to the pharmacy for creams and pessaries, but did not find these effective. She has also tried probiotic drinks.

Kayla’s experiences have made her more open to contacting healthcare professionals and pushing for additional appointments and advice. She plans to continue seeking healthcare. Kayla encourages other patients to ask for referrals and for healthcare professionals to access more information about recurrent thrush and how it differs from acute cases. 

Kayla worried that somehow people would know that she had thrush – even though they would not be able to see it.

I’ll have like a couple of showers a day to try and keep clean, and I'm worried people will know I've got it, even though you know there’s no symptoms that would show that I have, but I... you know, I worry people might know that I've got it, and it just impacts my life you know because I'm so sore, you know it just hurt... as I said before, it just hurts to you know even if going out for a simple meal, sitting down is painful.

I don’t know, just because there’s kind of like a stigma to it, and I think people might think it’s you know because I'm not clean enough, or you know that I'm not doing something... I'm not keeping myself clean, which is why I keep getting it. I don't know, I just think there’s a stigma to it if you say you have recurrent thrush.

Kayla found she could see a sexual health professional quicker than her GP or a specialist.

I went to... no, actually my consultant at the hospital does a... a joint clinic with the sexual health doctor and she happened to be in one of my appointments, and she said that you know if I ever wanted to go and get tested for thrush, or have a general check-up, I can contact the sexual health clinic at any time and pop down there, you know, they have appointments released daily, so if I was in a bad flare-up, I could just contact the sexual health clinic and pop down there and see one of the nurses and they would then do a swab and see how I was getting on and see if they could recommend anything more quickly than seeing my GP or waiting for the consultant.

Kayla found seeing a vulval dermatologist very helpful.

The vulval dermatologist, she explained it in much more detail, so you know explained what species of thrush I had and was just much more thorough. You know, like when she gave me the medication, she explained to me how I should be taking it and you know if there wasn't any improvement to give her an email back so she could tweak things a bit more.

Kayla tried using gentian violet but did not find it effective.

A vulval dermatologist who then looked at it more in depth and has tried all different treatments: some that haven't really been used before, like the gentian violet, where they painted my vagina every week with like a purple antifungal paint to see if that would work, but that didn't work either.