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Hi Aunt Vadge,
I’ve been experiencing pain from vaginal fissures for about a week now. I’ve just finished a round of antibiotics for a UTI.
My vagina was itchy and sore after day two of the antibiotics, and on day five I had a yeast infection-like discharge. I treated it with an oral antifungal, and the itching and discharge have now gone.
However, I still have a tear on each side, on the inner lips, a bit deeper inside. My vagina also feels much drier than normal (I’m usually extremely lubricated). Please help me.
Is there anything I can do to speed up healing? At what point should I see my doctor? Could anything besides yeast be causing this? I also have herpes (HSV2), but this feels very different to an outbreak.
Thanks,
Natasha
Dear Natasha,
What a run you’ve had – a UTI, then antibiotics, then yeast, and now sore little tears and unusual dryness. Happily, this all hangs together and points one direction, so there’s plenty you can do. Vaginal tears after antibiotics like yours are a very common tail end to exactly this sequence.
Your vagina is recovering from the whole antibiotic-and-antifungal chain. Those medications knock back your protective bacteria along with whatever they were sent in to treat, and when those colonies drop, the lining gets more fragile and easily nicked, and your usual lubrication dips too. That fits your tears-plus-dryness exactly, and it tends to settle as your bacteria rebuild.
So the main job now is rebuilding that protective population and giving the skin a proper rest. After antibiotics or antifungals, a high-quality probiotic twice a day with food, for a couple of weeks, helps repopulate things (this is worth doing after any course of antibiotics, whatever they were for). Pile in some fermented foods too, and leave the area properly alone while it mends – no sex, no masturbating, no tampons, nothing that rubs or stretches the tears open again.
It’s also worth keeping your bowels moving comfortably at least once a day, with enough high-fibre food (vegetables, fruit and legumes all count – aim for around 30g a day). Regular bowels stop disruptive gut bacteria building up and travelling the short distance across to the vagina, which is part of how that original UTI likely got started.
For day-to-day care of the tears, wash with plain warm water only and pat dry, and our guide on healing vaginal fissures has the rest. In our clinic, sore little tears and a dry, depleted feeling after a course of antibiotics is one of the most common things we see, and it usually comes good once the flora is back on its feet.
On your HSV2 question: you know your own body, and if this feels nothing like an outbreak it most likely isn’t one. But because the herpes virus can occasionally show up as plain little splits or fissures rather than the classic blisters, it’s worth bearing in mind if these tears refuse to heal. If they’re still there in a couple of weeks, that’s one thing a doctor can swab to rule out.
See a doctor sooner if you’re in ongoing or worsening pain, you get any bleeding outside your period, the tears aren’t healing, or things flare up again. If you’d like help getting your microbiome properly back in balance after all this, you’re welcome to book an appointment with us.
Be gentle with yourself – your vagina has been through the wringer and just needs a bit of time and the right support.
Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
