Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush

I’m partly used to it now, which obviously you shouldn’t have to be used to anything that’s uncomfortable, and... but I think that being used to it, in a way, is a bit of a double-edged sword because I’m like, OK, I’m used to the symptoms, I know what I’m looking out for and I think that that can be... like there is a lot of power in knowledge for sure, in really knowing what you’re looking out for, but at the same time it’s like that, [sighs] ‘how annoying,’ when I do get it again.

Yeah, I guess I’ve just sort of... I feel like I’ve just accepted that is like... a bit like I get quite bad period cramps, like that’s just... I feel like that’s something I’ve just accepted that that’s something I experience, so I just want to work out how to like best manage that, rather than... I think I’ve sort of given up on the idea that I’d ever be able to get rid of it and never experience it without taking any kind of treatment or anything.

I think they were just... I just accepted it I think. I was just like, ‘yeah, yeah, whatever, I’ll just get on with it.’ And you know... I’m coming from that 80s generation of kind of like you just get on with things and you just soldier on and all this like mentality, you know, and I kind of think sometimes that is engrained in me sometimes a little bit. You know I’m not... I mean you see it every day when you... you know when I’m out and about, and in this day and age I just think, ‘God.’ Sometimes I feel really young, you know I’m quite a young 42-year-old, and then I think, ‘oh God, no you’re not,.' Some of the things that you grew up with, you know like this mentality... pardon me, and you just kind of get on with it and soldier on and you just... like I... like I say, when I get it, I just go to the chemist, get the fluconazole and boom, get on with my day and I just think, ‘OK, fine.'

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.

As the years kind of progressed, like I would start... I was starting to get it two to three times a year, it seemed to be like... I don't know if it just I was tolerating it more because like my body was sort of almost getting used to the thrush, so it wasn’t appearing to be like as much of a nuisance, it was more just a: ‘oh gosh, here we go again,’ but over the last, I’d say, two to three years... or probably three to four years, it’s got to the point where I was getting it every other month, every month.

I think that it... it’s... and it’s been going on for so long, it’s just part of me now, like my brain I think has got to the point now where it just seems to think that I will just have thrush forever and that is that, so it... it’s just part of me now, which sounds weird to say, but it’s just something that I have to put up with, and I, for me, it’s normal now.

I didn’t know what my normal was, I didn’t know what my body was like normally without it, and when people would ask like, “Well, is this normal?” I just wouldn’t be able to answer because I think you probably end up coping with a certain amount of discomfort, and also it meant like I had no idea about what normal discharge was because often when I thought I didn’t have it, I would then find out, via a swab test, that I did, and there were also sometimes where I thought I had it, and I didn’t.

Well, this is the thing, you know what I struggle with the most obviously you... everyone loves to Google everything and when I knew it was recurrent thrush, I was looking... I was trying to find... I know this sounds really sad, I was trying to find the cure for it, and I was like, ‘Why isn’t there a cure?’ like it doesn't make sense, and it... it was quite upsetting because I think I read something where it said there is no cure, and I was like, ‘ohh...’ I took that... oh, oh my gosh I’m getting upset, because I took that really quite hard because I remember saying to my husband like, “There’s no... there’s no cure, there’s no cure, this... I'm going to have this for the rest of my menstrual life.” And it hit me quite hard, I think I was really down and out for about a week.

I mean I... there’s... whilst part of me is very much like just accepted that it is what is now, there is part of me that hopes one day I’ll never have thrush again, but I feel like that’s very much a pipeline dream of it’s just wishful thinking, but I think I’m just kind of working on being OK with it myself and accepting that that’s something that I have and I have to deal with and, you know, moving forward within sexual relationships and romantic relationships, that’s just something that’s going to have to play into that basically.

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.

I guess it’s like when you... when you have a cold, you don’t really notice how... like until you have a cold, you don’t notice how nice it is to be able to breathe out of your nose, so... like, and that I didn’t really think about it, but it is actually, yeah, it’s really nice, and to... like looking back on it, you’re like, ‘oh, that was like... yeah, that was not ideal,’ so yeah, it’s really nice to be... to have... well, touchwood, have solved that problem. But also, for like if it happened again, having gone through the experience once, I would know, like I would have the tools to be a little bit more proactive and perhaps to suggest that like it might be recurring a little bit earlier, than I did the last time.

It’s... yeah, God, it’s amazing. Like, looking back at how bad it was and just like... I was just crying all the time, I was distressed all the time, I felt terrible all the time, and it’s been a bit of a... I would say in some ways like a slow process out of it in some ways, you know, feeling... feeling better, you know, me and my partner feeling comfortable with each other again and things like that, there’s... there has been some things that have taken longer.

I wouldn’t say I’m still working through them now... there was definitely a bit of a kind of a mental connection like, you know like... and probably still now really, like if you get any kind of itch, it’s like, ‘is it back?’ things like that, and not knowing like... and worrying that like... will I spot the symptoms, will I know what it is, worrying that it will come back and it won’t have been the coil. Like I said, it was me and my partner kind of slowly feeling comfortable with one another again and, you know, feeling like we could be intimate and it wasn’t going to make anything worse between us, or like, you know, we weren’t going to pass anything, but yeah, I’ve managed to not have it at all since.

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.

I mean with anything to do with kind of like vaginal health it’s very easy to just be like... pretend you don't see it and pretend that you can just kind of tough it out, because I do think we're expected to do that a lot, like even with something like really severe period pains: if men were dealing with that they would not, like... it wouldn't be expected that cis-men tough it out and just cope without proper treatment or without kind of a... like the right medication for it, so why should that be expected of people with vaginas when you're experiencing something painful?

It made me feel pretty angry to be honest, I felt like I... like, I'm kind of a bit fed up of having like... especially... like, I feel like this happens more for me with like gynaecological issues, they get like minimised quite a lot, or like brushed... and like across... and also they don't actually know a lot about that area of the body, it’s like the area of your body that you basically know the least about, and just being told that like what you're experiencing it’s actually what you're experiencing, or like that it’s not... it can't really be that bad, or it can't really be the case, but... I don't know, it’s made me... made me pretty annoyed to be honest.

I would say... I mean I know that the Government’s just appointed... I can't remember her name, just appointed someone that’s essentially going to manage women’s health for the NHS and for UK, which... or it might just be England, which is something that it’s a bit closing the door after the horse has bolted, you know we've got an enormous issue with women’s health and understanding women’s health, there needs to be better understanding, there needs to be more research, there needs to be more understanding and available information about women’s health and hopefully that’s something that you can see that is happening.