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Hi Aunt Vadge,
I have been with my boyfriend almost 3 years now and recently I feel like I may be addicted to sex. I masturbate a lot and I constantly seem to be horny when I am alone or with my boyfriend.
I am quite prone to getting urinary tract infections after sex, so I went to the doctors seeking antibiotics. I was given antibiotics, which then gave me thrush, which I was not aware of at the time, so I was still having sex and it was hurting a lot, so we had to stop.
Around this time (this started in July and still is not fixed) I was due to get an IUD fitted, so I was at the sexual health clinic and told them how it stung when I had sex. They ran some tests and postponed the fitting by two weeks. The results came back clear, and the doctor said it just appeared swollen and gave me some cream for thrush.
So now every time I have sex I take an antibiotic and apply the cream to avoid another UTI. It still stings a little during sex, but I have been trying to ignore it because I crave sex so much and my partner has a lower drive than me. Lately I have been experiencing a stinging sensation after I orgasm from masturbating too. I would just like some information before I go back to a doctor.
Yours,
Stinging
Dear Stinging,
You have got a fair bit tangled together here, so let us pull it apart. The stinging is your body waving a flag, and the routine you are on is treating the fallout without ever getting to why this keeps happening.
An antibiotic around every time you have sex is a recognised way doctors try to head off recurrent post-sex UTIs, so you are not doing anything daft. The catch is that it does two things at once: it clears the UTI, but it also knocks back the protective bacteria that keep yeast in check, which is exactly where your thrush keeps coming from. On its own it never answers the real question – why the UTIs keep happening in the first place – so the aim is to break that cycle rather than keep dosing over the top of it forever.
A good first step is to make sure every one of those UTIs has actually been confirmed on a urine test. If some of them were treated on symptoms alone, you may be taking antibiotics you did not need, and that keeps the whole cycle spinning. Worth asking your doctor to test and confirm before the next course.
Now, the stinging itself. It can be lingering inflammation, or thrush that has not fully cleared. Sometimes what looks like stubborn ‘yeast’ is not yeast at all – treatment-resistant thrush can turn out to be something like cytolytic vaginosis, where the environment is too acidic and the usual thrush creams make it worse. A comprehensive vaginal microbiome test will show exactly what is living down there so you treat the right thing.
Here is the other possibility worth raising with your doctor: your tests came back clear and the area just looked swollen. When stinging carries on with no infection to find, it can be a pain and irritation pattern rather than a bug – the vulval skin and the pelvic floor getting over-sensitive and tight, sometimes called vestibulodynia. It travels with recurrent cystitis surprisingly often. That is assessed and treated by a vulval clinic or a pelvic floor physiotherapist, not by more antifungal cream. We are naturopathic and do not do those physical assessments ourselves, so ask to be pointed that way if the swabs keep coming back clear.
In the meantime, give the area a proper rest from sex and masturbation while it is sore. I know that is a big ask with a high sex drive, and a strong libido is completely normal and nothing to feel bad about – there is a wide range of ‘normal’ here. It is only worth exploring with someone if you feel it is running your life in a way you are not happy with; otherwise, enjoy it once you are healed.
Once you are comfortable again, these habits really do cut down post-sex UTIs and thrush:
- Wee straight after sex.
- Rinse off under the shower afterwards.
- Make sure everything is clean before sex – including anywhere fingers have been.
- No double-dipping (vagina to anus and back), and that goes for his fingers too.
- Eat more probiotic fermented foods and drinks to feed your protective bacteria.
- Eat well generally – good, clean food gives the protective bacteria the environment they need to do their job in your vagina and urethra.
Cranberry has some support for preventing the classic post-sex E. coli type of UTI, and some people find D-mannose helps too, though the evidence for it is more mixed – there is more in using cranberry for UTIs.
Get the right diagnosis and break the antibiotic loop, and you should be able to get back to enjoying yourself without the sting.
Take care,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
