Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush

So that was... I think that was a phone appointment off the back of something else, and I think I’d kind of said, “Look, you know, it’s getting a bit of a joke now, like it’s just not going away, like I really don’t know what else to do now, like I just can’t continue the way that I am,” so that’s when they were like, “Right, well it seems to be pretty persistent so we’ll... we’ll try a six-month course of weekly pessaries,” which that kind of... I was like, “Yeah, fine, like I’m happy to try anything at this point.”

So, my first experience was relatively straightforward: got thrush, kind of was treating it myself, went to the GP, they prescribed the course of fluconazole, took that for six months and it... it cleared up, I never had to go back or anything; I had it the odd time after that, but nothing... nothing bad. And then the most recent time was last year, it started, so it started kind of flaring up little bits so... which I was managing to treat by myself and then I realised that it had slipped back up to the reoccurring thrush, but this time it’s been a lot more difficult to... to manage, so I... I ended up being on two courses, so it was basically a year of fluconazole.

I don’t go to the GP. I went to the GP once to say I want this sorted out and that’s when I got the... that’s when I got the kind of... I can’t remember, was it six months’ worth... I think it was, six months’ worth and it was one tablet a week for the first six weeks and then one tablet a month for the rest of the time, so I went there to say, ‘I’m just getting this every month, I want it sorted out,’ and to be fair, she sorted it out for me. Because she said what she thinks happens is that it’s always living inside me, permanently, and it just flares up, so I never really... with one capsule every time I get it, it doesn’t knock it on the head, it just reduces it to a level where it doesn’t cause problems, so she was really helpful in explaining all of that and was really kind of impressed that she went all the way and spoke to a specialist, and I was really happy to have got the treatment.

So, I thought they would... have seen this time, have seen this a million times before cause of how common it is, I thought they would know exactly what was going on. I thought that after prescribing me fluconazole for like the fourth, fifth time, somebody would have realised, ‘OK, this is not working, and there needs to be more testing done here to figure out what’s going on,’ or to at least understand the wider picture as to why I’m so susceptible or vulnerable to them, but there was no kind of support.

So, I’ve been back to lots of different doctors. So, it’s been like my... when I was sort of... up until my early 20s it was the same GP and they were the ones that were constantly just giving me pessaries all the time and creams and all these different kinds of pills, and it would be the same thing. You know, I would go, they’d put mean me on a course for a week, I’d come back and they’d be like, “Oh OK, well, we’ll put you on for two weeks,” and that was it, that’s all they gave me, and I was going back probably once every three, six... three to six months, and nothing changed.

So then I went back again after the doctor, after I’d done two six-month courses, and that was about a year and a half ago and at that point I agreed with my doctor to basically take fluconazole once a month, and I said, “How long should I do this for?” and they said, “However... like, as long as you want to, you know, if you feel like you don’t want to be taking a tablet once a month, then... then stop, but basically there’s no harm in it.” So that’s what I’ve been doing, and pretty much it’s... I haven’t had... yeah, I would say I’ve probably had three times in the last year where I’ve thought outside... so I normally take the tablet just after my period finishes, once a month, and there have probably been three times in the last year where I felt like I might be getting thrush outside of that monthly cycle, so I’d like, oh, I’ll take a tablet now instead and then that sort of keeps it at bay. So generally, I feel like it’s under control, but I’m taking fluconazole once a... once a month, and if I don’t then it normally just comes back, and that’s where we... and that’s where I am now.

Yeah, I... it felt like such a little thing to do in comparison to all I’d been through with this. You know, I think sometimes I didn’t remember to take it on exactly the same day, but I was pretty good at taking it overall, yeah, that was fine.

I’m a bit ditsy, I shouldn’t... not ditsy, but forgetful... I’m a bit forgetful, and because it’s a daily medication, so I’ve put a reminder in my phone, I did put a reminder in my phone, but after seeing... I’m just a bit... like I said, I’m a bit disillusioned now, so I’ve sort of given up on taking a long course; maybe I should try again now that partner has... because that was frustrating as well, but... yeah.

With the... with the six-month one, and then I just thought, ‘well, it’s coming back,’ you know, I thought it should be able to go away after three months, and that was very frustrating. I mean I have thought about just asking again and doing a six-month course again, but you just sort of give up a bit; it sounds a bit silly, but I need to... I do need to try again.

So, I got them and it... I mean using a pessary every week is a bit of a pain in the arse to be honest, obviously because it’s... you put it in, and then it all comes out, and it takes a couple of days to come out, so by the time it’s probably all cleared out your system... out of being... and being inside you, like you’re putting something else back up there, and it was remembering to do it every week, and then I was still getting breakthrough symptoms anyway, and it just... it... it was a lot of plastic, and a lot of cardboard, and a lot of everything, and it seemed to kind of give me cramps, and I don’t know whether that’s just because it was hitting me... like obviously in having something sitting near my uterus for that long, like I don’t... I don’t know, but I did notice that I... I was getting like a lot more cramps when I was doing it as well.

I took the regular, from Boots, Canesten treatment, yeah, because I couldn’t get anything on prescription, I didn’t want to have... because they can give you a drug to take every month and I was like, ‘I don’t really want to do that,’ because I’m very anti drug-taking, I’m studying nutrition so I knew what those drugs are and I don’t really want to take them.

Then when I started going to my actual GP practice, the... there was conversations, but there was a GP who kind of gave their personal experience because they’d had the same thing, which was helpful in some ways, but not in another way, and it was a lot of mixed messages of what it could be, how it should be treated. Like one GP said, “Oh no, you’re fine to be on this medication,” and another GP was slightly more concerned about it, and then when I actually went and eventually saw gynaecology, they were just like, “Get off that medication, you shouldn’t have been prescribed it for this long.”

So, the... the first GP that I spoke to that said, “Don’t worry, I’m not... I’m not too worried about you being on it,” said, you know, “you’re young, you’re healthy, you’ve... you’ve got no like counter-interactions,” but the gynaecologist just said it... you know, “It metabolises in the liver, you shouldn’t be taking it for more than six months,” and that’s why he said, “can get off it.”

They were effective: I haven’t had thrush for five months now, so they have worked. I just don’t know how long they’ll hold it off because they’ve worked because I’ve consistently taken them, I don’t know whether that’s broken the cycle, which I’m hoping it has, because I’m hoping what happened is I just never quite cleared the cycle whenever I took them. But it came out of nowhere when it first started, I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes back, is my concern with it.

But I know it sounds really quite... I don’t know, it sounds negative, but I just know it’s going to come back, as soon as I stop taking them pessaries, that thrush’ll be back. I just know that it’ll come back after those six months, do you know what I mean? I know it sounds...I’m probably sounding a bit... I don’t know, a bit like... do you know what I mean, a bit like I’m not giving it a chance, but I’ve done it before and it never worked, it just came back again, so I just... I’ve got no... much hope for it, but I feel like for six months I can sort of feel better for six months, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, and I... I felt like the last time I went and asked about, you know, whether there were any reasons why I shouldn’t keep taking fluconazole in the long term and what my options were, and the fact that like it was a bit frustrating initially that after the six-month course didn’t work, nobody really knew what to suggest for me, but then the fact that my doctor said, “Well, I’ll go and like find this out for you and then come back to you,” in some ways that was quite nice because I felt like they were actually trying to help me rather than just sort of turning me away with no solutions. So yeah, I definitely felt like well-supported and I’m not really sure if there’s anything I would have... that would have made it better other than like I guess like more... more understanding like of thrush in general that might help with... with better treatment, but in terms of the sort of... my experience has generally been positive, yeah.