Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush

So, while part of thrush will be the specific treatments that are targeted against it, it's also worth thinking just slightly broadly about general things that can help the vulval skin and vaginal skin feel more comfortable because it is quite delicate skin at all times. And if it also kind of additionally to that being aggravated or irritated by the thrush, that you're experiencing or actually even sometimes by a reaction or irritation to things that you might be using to manage the thrush alongside it. So, like panty liners, often with fragrance in or kind of excessive washing or soaps, or even sometimes the creams themselves.

So, it's also important to think kind of generally about treating that delicate skin with some gentleness. So, washing with kind of plain water, being careful to avoid things that might be drying or quite irritant, so, bubble baths, perfumed soaps, things like that, that can maybe aggravate skin in general, but certainly kind of exacerbate already irritated skin, avoiding things that could be kind of traumatic to the skin, like steaming or douching particularly with chemicals or astringents. And then just like anywhere else on the body, if the skin is delicate and fragile, using something like a dermatological emollient. And I would ask for advice from your health care provider about which of these might be suitable or recommended for use, that can give kind of comfort and protection as well from dryness and irritation. And they can also help and can be used to wash with as well.

Because it was recurring so often, they were like, “Mm, there’s something weird,” but then they were like, “don’t use bath bombs, don’t use shower...” you know, “don’t use intimate things.” Even that Femfresh wash apparently is supposed to be quite bad, do you know that feminine wash? Apparently, that’s not good for you either, but then they advertise it, don’t they, as being good for people who have thrush, so my GP was like, “Just use water, you know, don’t add anything to your bath,” and that’s what I’ve been doing.

Yeah, I suppose I don’t wear tights as much anymore, and like I say, just like the bath bombs and the shower gels and things, I don’t use around that area anymore, because again it... it just aggravates it and it’s just like throwing fat onto a fire, it just makes it worse, so I just... like I say, tights, I don’t really wear very often now, and just like I say, bath soaps, bath bombs, things like that, I’m very careful with now. And it’s a shame because obviously it’s so nice to have a bath in the winter with all like bath oils and stuff, and like I say, I can’t do that now really.

I can say maybe I think I didn’t realise that it was triggered with the soap which I was using, the shower gels and soap with the perfume, so I was just going to the pharmacy and buying the over-the-counter creams, and the moment you keep on using this shower gel, I think that why it was really occurring more often because I didn’t know, but when I visited the clinic, that’s when I realised that it was triggered with the soap which I was using and the shower gel.

I don't use the same towel more than once or twice, whether I... and one gynaecologist who I saw suggested that when I get out the shower I dry the area with a... a hairdryer rather than using a towel because he said it’s just... it’s just better for the tissues, so yeah, I've done that as well, so I'm just really fanatical about how I dry because if you've got an active infection and you pass it to the towel, and you use the towel, it gives you it back, so I'm fanatical about that.

Around the vulva area I've always been quite sensitive and always avoided any sort of soaps, so that’s sort of when I... when I was younger. I... now I wash with the Hydromol ointment that I've washed with for years, probably six, seven years now I've washed with that and I find that that helps me, and there’s lots of things I do in order to reduce irritations: so I wear cotton knickers, a lot of them being white; I don't have any baths; I use Hydromol, I put Hydromol on first as a sort of ...to act as a barrier before I wash my hair, and soap is going down my body.

I am getting really anxious about getting the coil on Wednesday because I’m anxious that that will exacerbate the problem and the... the fact that... that the... there’s kind of at least anecdotal evidence out there that suggests that the copper coil... causes... or exacerbates thrush, has meant that I’ve delayed getting it for... I’ve delayed getting it since I took... since the little one was born, so three years I’ve kind of put it off, and put it off because I don’t want to be in this situation where I’m already getting it every other month and I don’t want to get in this situation where it’s even worse.

So, the thrush has affected my decision to get the coil because on the copper coil you can have more thrush, but I’m actually getting it because I can’t use any other birth control because I just can’t use the hormonal stuff. So, I went... so I’m getting it on Wednesday, and for my pre-coil appointment I went to the GP and I said, you know, “I’ve heard it causes more thrush, and I have recurrent thrush,” and they were just like, “Don’t worry about it,” and that was all I got really, “you’ll be fine,” and I don’t think I will, I think I’ll just get recurrent thrush and then they can take it out, but I’ll try, because it is just thrush, isn’t it, and they don’t really... I don’t really feel it’s taken seriously.

My doctor linked it to being on the pill, which is quite common apparently because your pH changes in the vagina when you're on the pill, and when you're starting your period, so on the off days I had it when I wasn't on the pill, which is quite common, I think. So yeah, I thought, ‘oh great,’ but stayed on the pill, stuck with it, had about two infections this year of thrush, and they were confirmed as thrush, because I got them tested each time with the GP.

I also find the NHS and some medical advice, for me, doesn't feel like medical advice: like on the NHS website it says that you should not wear tight clothes, I'm like, ‘well, that doesn't feel like medical advice,’ and I also don't think that’s appropriate to start telling people what... to an extent, start telling people what they should wear when they're not actually then equipped with maybe the right research or the right resources to solve the root of the problem, it’s almost like you're putting the onus on the patient to be like, ‘well, you're wearing tight jeans so it’s your fault,’ and I feel like that isn't medical advice.

So, I use a lot of preventative stuff: I think my main kind of daily stuff that I do to prevent thrush coming on is that I now no longer wear pants or underwear at all, and I no longer wear trousers at all, which for me is really weird. I've been very tomboy-ish all my life, so it’s been a very painful thing to realise that I don't really have a choice, because even with my bamboo underwear, which I've been using for years, I still have... I still get it, I still get thrush. So, I just decided to abandon underwear all together on the basis that we know that moulds, yeasts, whatever, like warm, sweaty, dark, you know all that, so I just... I'm trying to go with quite... quite common-sense kind of attitude of, ‘right, abandon the underwear,’ and spent a fortune on dresses and skirts, I feel like... I don't feel like myself in dresses and skirts but I feel like it’s that or the... the suffering really, so that’s kind of... those are some of my major changes that I've done.

I cut out sugar and it did get better, but I couldn’t stick to it. I cut out sugar multiple times for like a few weeks or a month and I would start... if I was like busy, I would just cut out like actual sugar, well, what I would call like real sugar, like chocolate cake, biscuits, fun stuff, but a couple of times I cut out like fruit, bread, there was some sort of vague idea that I should cut out gluten, so I tried that, I don’t know how much...  I tried to cut out sort of all... like all sort of refined sugar and... but then that was wild, I got this terrible headache, I lost a shit ton [of weight].

I live... I've always lived quite a changeable life: I go from project to project, I work like... I go from working 15 hours a day to not working at all, like currently I'm working six days a week and then in three weeks I'll be unemployed, and so like planning meals in that... and especially in my 20s when I was like climbing up the career ladder and I was also on like 23K a year, someone saying, “Oh, you can't eat potatoes, pasta and rice,” I was like, “Well, what the fuck am I going to eat then because I get home at 11pm and I leave the house at 8am and I just want the a bowl of pasta.

Other thing... another thing that I read and my gynaecologist also confirmed was if you have a lot of [inaudible], she just said yes to it, but she said if your diet and like a food intake has a lot of sugar in it, there are... there are higher chances... like you can contract... contract the thrush infection more often than not, so if you can reduce... because I had a very... I used to have a lot of sweets, so I have a lot of sugar, a lot, lot of sugar, so I was asked to reduce my sugar intake too, so to... as to just control the infection maybe a bit and see if it works. And I don't have a definitive answer if it worked or no because I used to still get recurrent episodes, but again just reducing sugar was a good idea just in general, so I started doing that.

I'd signed up to some like chat forums. At one point I looked at doing the low candida diet. I've looked at all sorts of things; I mean the theories out there are wild. I don't know... sure... I'm not sure how many of them are accurate, but I did genuinely consider changing my diet to see if that would help, and as someone who... I've had a very interesting relationship with foods throughout my life, it’s probably not a good idea for me to do that, but you know when you get to that point of desperation you're like, ‘I just want something to fix this because I can't keep living how I'm living,’ so I've looked into a few.

I haven’t had to take antibiotics since that first... since I took them for a UTI that... and then got thrush as a result, and that’s only happened to me once, but I would be like reluctant to take antibiotics again unless I... I think there was one time I had like a... a really... I had like an infection on my foot, and it was like really swollen, and I went to the walk-in clinic and the person I saw there said like, “mm, it’s kind of borderline, like it’s probably just going to sort itself out, but like I could give you a course of antibiotics if you wanted?” and I was like, “Ah, no thank you, I don’t want the side effects of that,” so that definitely made my decision for me then, and if I need antibiotics again, I’d definitely be a bit... it would definitely make me think more about... because I just would assume that I’ll probably get thrush as a result because I seem to get it, you know, it seems to happen to me very easily, so yeah.

It wouldn't shift it and I was thinking, ‘why is it still holding on to it when we're trying to treat it?’ and, like I said, in my head I'm thinking ‘I'm doing everything I can, I've switched and I've literally stopped wearing thongs and anything like that’, and just went to good old practical, as we like to call them ‘granny panties’ and just kept it simple, I thought, ‘well, I'm not using any soap in any intimate areas, I'm not using...’ Femfresh, that’s what I was thinking of, ‘I'm not using the Femfresh wash anymore, I'm simply using water, I'm changing my towel a lot more frequently than I was,’ because I was just trying to do as much as I could just to try and eliminate it.