Lost a Grape in Your Vagina? Here's What to Do

Dear Aunt Vadge,

I pushed a grape using my middle finger deep into my vagina. Will it come out by itself? I did it while I was masturbating. After climax, the grape was still deep inside of me.

Yours,
Graped
Age: 27
Country: USA
_____

Dear Graped,

The vagina has very strong suction, which is why sex toys and tampons all have handles and strings. A grape, on the other hand, is smooth, small and round, and would get sucked into the vortex without much trouble.

The grape is probably sitting in the area just under your cervix, where tampons, menstrual cups, and other vaginal devices sit comfortably, and everything gets sucked towards (including a penis and semen, when the time is right). The bottom half of the vagina tends to push outwards, but once an object gets to a certain point, it gets sucked upwards.

Usually foreign objects will eventually disintegrate and/or be expelled as part of your normal vaginal fluids. Because a grape is a food, it may be gently broken down by the moisture in your vagina, and by enzymes that exist, and just turn to mush and fall out.

You may not necessarily see all of it coming out. It may also pop out whole. It’s hard to know. If the grape had a tear in the edge of its skin, then enzymes could get into the grape to start turning it to mush, but if the grape’s skin is sealed, it could take a little longer.

It’s possible that as food, it is providing a food source for microbes in your vagina, and some of these microbes may not be favourable to your vaginal ecosystem. This is why it’s important to try to get the grape out sooner rather than later. You don’t want to end up with bacterial vaginosis or a yeast infection.

If your pelvic floor muscles are very strong, the vagina can even keep liquids inside for long periods of time in some women, which means objects and fluids can take longer to naturally, via gravitational forces, come out.

You have a few options as to what you could try to do to get the grape out of your vagina:

Just wait a couple of days and see if it comes out by itself.
Try to find it with your fingers and drag it out. Make sure to fish around in your vagina to make sure you have it all. This may work best squatting and using some lube on your fingers, because finding things that far into your vagina can be a bit time consuming and awkward!
Go to a free sexual health clinic, emergency room or nurse and ask them to get it out for you. It’ll take a minute, using a speculum to spread apart the walls of your vagina and look for the grape with a torch, then use a pair of tweezers or other tool to pluck, roll or drag it out.
Try to douche it out using a mixture of vinegar and water (to keep your pH right), but douching is not good for your vagina if you do it too much, because you can wash away your good bacteria. So, be cautious with douching, and position your body and pelvis to maximise the flush. You will need to make sure you get the liquid right up to near your cervix, and create a flow from the top down, to push any debris out. This may not work, but it could be worth a try. Get a big douche/turkey baster, so that the volume of liquid that you are able to get into your vagina in one go, to create the stream, is higher. Best position may be in/over a bath if you have one, or squatting to maximise the downward pressure that will push fluid out.
Some women can deliberately queef (vaginal fart) by opening up the vaginal canal to suck in air or fluids. Not everyone can figure out how to do this at will, but you can open your vaginal canal wide, and then use the douche, or sit in a bath (no soap, cup of vinegar) and suck water in and out of your vagina and hope to see the grape come flying out! If you can do this, you may already know about it, but some women can do this and aren’t aware of it. There is no doubt a YouTube about it!

You shouldn’t go for too many more days with the grape inside your vagina, as the potential for bacterial issues grows ever larger. Pop into your doctor, ER, or sexual health clinic and get them to get it out for you – it’s very easy and fast to do this.

Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge