Laura
Laura has had recurrent thrush since she was a child. She has seen multiple healthcare professionals and felt that thrush is not a priority issue. She has stopped seeing the GP and self-manages her condition. She hopes to see more attention on recurrent thrush in the future.
Laura (she/her) is a straight woman who is currently engaged. She works as a civil servant. She is white British. Interview cips read by an actor.
More about me...
Laura has had recurrent thrush since she was a child due to being on immunosuppressant medication which makes her more suspectable. She gets thrush every few months.
Laura’s symptoms include vulvovaginal itching, burning, and changes in discharge. She has also had oral thrush.
Recurrent thrush impacted her sex life “massively” as when it is active, she doesn’t want sex at all and worries about passing it to her partner. She worries that other people will think thrush is sexually transmitted. Laura finds the oral thrush harder to deal with as it is more visible and she can feel it consistently, while with vaginal thrush she can get relief from the cream temporarily.
Laura said that the recurrent vulvovaginal thrush was often seen as “not really important in the grand scheme of things” by medical professionals. In light of her other medical issues, thrush was “a sideline” and seen as “not terribly important” by doctors. This contrasted with her experience where recurrent thrush had a significant impact on her life. At one point, Laura was hospitalised when the oral thrush meant she could not swallow. She remembers mentioning the vaginal thrush but that it was “minimised even then”.
In terms of accessing support, Laura feels comfortable talking to her close friends. She has seen nurses who she found were empathetic and reassuring when they took the issue seriously.
Laura was swabbed for thrush multiple times. She remembers once a nurse could not perform a smear test due to the thrush making it difficult to see her cervix. Since her 20s, Laura has not been examined again.
In her 30s, Laura stopped going to the GP for antifungal medication prescriptions and started to self-treat. She feels confident self-managing using over-the-counter options as it is the same medication as what would otherwise be prescribed to her. She also feels that GPs are “overstretched” and that it does not feel fair to see them for “just thrush”.
Laura has found that her expectations around healthcare professionals have changed over time. As a teenager, she expected doctors to have solutions to make thrush go away and not come back. However, she was told to simply treat active infections. As she got older, she no longer takes the doctors’ advice as “gospel” and is more willing to do her own research.
When she was a teenager, Laura would consistently see health professionals. However, now Laura does not mention it to her GP and prefers to order antifungal medication online. If Laura visited her GP, she could get medication for free on her prescription prepayment card, but since she self-treats she has to pay for medication which is costly. Since the items she uses are available directly on the shelf and not over-the-counter, she has not had any interactions with pharmacists.
In terms of treatment, Laura has tried using antifungal pessaries and creams. She uses the tablet pessaries as she is allergic to gel ones. She is unable to use oral antifungals as they contradict with her other medication. She knows that the oral tablets work well for other people and that there are long term course options available which is not an option for her. Laura also manages her symptoms by wearing cotton underwear and avoiding tights.
Looking forward, Laura worries that recurrent thrush is not “high up on anybody’s agenda” in terms of searching for a cure or ways to reduce flare-ups. Her advice to healthcare professionals is to remember that this condition impacts patient lives even if it is not medically recognised as the “most serious condition”.
Laura read about recurrent thrush on a leaflet included in an antifungal medication package (read by an actor)
Laura read about recurrent thrush on a leaflet included in an antifungal medication package (read by an actor)
Yeah, there’s a leaflet in there that says... in the box, that says... I think there’s something on the cream as well that says if there’s no improvement within a certain amount of days, go and see a doctor, and I think there’s something in the actual leaflet itself that... that says if you have so many episodes in a period you should go and see the doctor.
Thrush had a big impact on Laura and her partner’s sex lives, including around oral sex, which left her feeling “frustrated” (read by an actor)
Thrush had a big impact on Laura and her partner’s sex lives, including around oral sex, which left her feeling “frustrated” (read by an actor)
Sex life: massively, because when it’s active I won’t have sex at all, and... well, when I know it’s active, so when I’ve got the itching and the burning and the discharge, we won’t have sex because I don’t want to pass it onto him, and then it limits what you can do otherwise as well. You know if I’ve got it in my mouth, oral sex is obviously out. If I’ve got it vaginally, then oral sex for me is... is out because I wouldn’t want him to end... I know he shouldn’t end up with it in his mouth because that’s more of a supressed immune system thing, but he... he... in theory he could end up with it in his mouth, and that’s... I... I find the oral thrush harder to deal with than the vaginal thrush.
It makes me feel frustrated because I’d like to have sex and we can’t, so it makes me feel frustrated on his behalf that we’d like to have sex and we can’t.
Laura discusses how she thinks that recurrent thrush has been “side lined” as a women’s issue (read by an actor)
Laura discusses how she thinks that recurrent thrush has been “side lined” as a women’s issue (read by an actor)
I don't... as I say because it is... I think if men had it all the time, like women do, and men suffered from recurrent thrush, I think it would probably be different, and that there would be more money into you know trying to develop treatments and preventative measures and things like that, but because it’s a women’s issue I think it’s side-lined.