Something else? Ask Aunt Vadge – bottom left of your screen!
Hi Aunt Vadge,
I’ve had itchiness, soreness and slight blood spotting, and recently noticed slight tears/cracks on my labia. I took the Canesten Duo treatment, which helped some of the symptoms, but it’s still sore and irritable. Any advice?
Kind regards,
Sore
England
Hi there Sore,
It sounds like you could have a yeast infection, so working on that assumption, here’s what I’d do.
- Cut out all carbs for three days. This can be hard, but yeast loves carbs, and as soon as you cut off the food supply the bloom fades very quickly – you can feel it within a day. The main offenders are bread, pasta, wheat products and potato, but skip anything sugary too (drinks, cakes, chocolate and so on).
- Get a high-quality refrigerated probiotic designed specifically for women with Candida (vaginal thrush/yeast infection). You may need to hunt around, but look for a brand with the probiotic strain Saccharomyces boulardii – it’s a known yeast killer. Ask the pharmacist or health food store for help choosing a good brand. That strain isn’t necessarily the only useful one, but if you can find it, buy it. Take four capsules a day, and insert one into your vagina for good measure.
- Understand that if this is indeed a yeast infection, it has originated in your intestines, where there’s an overgrowth (bloom) of yeasts that makes its way to your vagina. They’re not as separate as you might think, which is why probiotics can help so quickly, by killing off the yeasts. Combine no carbs plus probiotics and you’ll often be symptom-free – or well on the way – within the same day or the next.
If following these recommendations doesn’t solve it, you may have another issue. For example, it might not be a yeast infection at all, but a lactobacillus overgrowth – an overgrowth of the bacteria we call the friendly bacteria, because the normal checks and balances haven’t been kept in your vagina for some reason. This is called cytolytic vaginosis, and it looks very much like a yeast infection, but it won’t respond to antifungal Candida treatments, because that isn’t the problem.
If you continue to have vaginal irritation despite all of these measures, write back and we’ll dig a little deeper, and may recommend you have your vagina swabbed to see what’s happening. Ongoing irritation has a cause that needs to be found and addressed sooner rather than later.
Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
