Period Undies Caution: A Personal Tale

So, our family does Kris Kringle gifts at Christmas. By lucky dip, we’re assigned a family member to buy for, while someone gets assigned us. Last year, Dave, my ex-brother-in-law and father of my nephew was lucky enough to be assigned me.

Because I’m a nice person, I save him the trouble by telling him exactly what I want him to spend his $50 on: two pairs of boyshorts period undies.

I’ve been finding it hard to set aside the not-inconsequential funds I’d need to buy enough pairs to last my whole period, so figured I’d cash in at Christmas and start the ball rolling.

Dave has been in our family long enough to know we have loose boundaries in terms of what’s private and what should be private, so I was obliged with good grace. We have four massage therapists, a naturopath and a nurse; dinner table conversation can get pretty gross. Period undies at Christmas are nothing.

Aaaaaanyway. I get the period undies and am excited to try them out – saving money on tampons, saving the planet, free-bleeding into my clothes like a feminist, rah rah rah. The first time I wear them, I put them on in the morning, intending to take them off at night. You know, like a pair of undies that you are allowed to get your period in. Period undies.

Everything is fine until the next morning when I go to the toilet. To my disgust, my vagina smells horrible. Foul, fishy, absolutely effing grotesque. I have, to my absolute dismay, developed bad vag over the course of yesterday plus the night to ferment.

(Bad Vag = Bacterial Vaginosis)

I was under the impression that you wear period undies like regular undies, except, period. Wear. Wash. Dry. Repeat. My period isn’t super heavy, so I knew a day would be ok. Well, so I thought.

Turns out, a day is not ok – at least not for me. See, I’ve got a history of bad vag, and while it doesn’t come up much, I have a deep and nasty fear of it. I have had a healthy, happy vagina for over five years, so the fact that one day in period undies could destroy the joint was profoundly frightening.

The other theory is that I was on the brink of bad vag, and the undies just tipped me over. But, I don’t agree. I know that my vagina was going well because I know these things after years of on-off problems.

However, as partial proof, a few friends and I were drinking wine and laughing one night before I first wore my new undies when I suggested we all check our vaginal pH. That’s right. That’s what we do around here for fun.

My pH was a delightful 4.0-4.5. It was perfect. Then, the day I got bad vag it went up to 5.0 – 5.5 and didn’t go down consistently until I’d done three weeks of treatments almost every day. I used two of the treatments in Killing BV together.

Why did this happen? Well, I’m not entirely sure. Considering I spend my days at My Vagina dealing with bad vag of all varieties, I figured I should know what was wrong with period undies. My best guess is that having them on all day as my sole period catchment wasn’t the right idea.

To be fair, we would never use a tampon or pad all day long. I mean, gross. It is gross. But what’s the point of period undies if they are just for overflow? That’s what all my other undies are for. I wanted an alternative to riding the cotton pony; I thought period undies were it.

Suffice to say, period undies gave me bad vag that, even with my area of expertise, took me three full weeks to get rid of. That’s preventable bad vag that went on for three weeks too long after just one day in period undies.

I am so freaked out by this development that I still have one brand-new unworn pairs of period undies sitting in my drawer. It’s May. I got them in January.

A little advice? Use period undies wisely! That is, consider the outcomes of all-day free-bleeding and if you should be using a tampon, menstrual cup or pad/panty liner. You don’t want a day’s worth of blood sitting in a puddle in your undies for longer than a few hours.

If you have a history of BV or are in the middle of treatments, avoid period undies like the plague. Or do we say ‘like coronavirus’ these days? Either way, you may end up with plague vagina that smells like something died in it if you do not give period undies the respect they deserve.