Alright, for the past week or so, I’ve been dealing with what I thought was a yeast infection. For me, these are usually, a 2 day, ignore them and they leave on their own sort of thing, but this one has been persistent and the discomfort has kept me from a full night’s sleep the past couple of nights.
So I broke down, shelled out the 18 bucks for Monistat 1, hoping that would be the end of it. I still only managed 4 hours of sleep, and I don’t feel any better. Now I am faced with the prospect of dragging my uninsured self down to the clinic and shelling out a bunch of money I don’t have to deal with a stupid itch.
How long is it supposed to take for Monistat to work? I would hate to go to the doctor’s only to find out that I just needed to wait a day for the medication to kick in.
N.B. I am already planning on going to the urgent care walk-in clinic place after work today, barring a mass of replys telling me I’m being impatient/silly, or a massive improvement in the situation of the course of today. So please, no posts just saying ‘go to the doctor’.
While I have no experience with your specific question, I have witnessed too many occasions where symptoms were ignored, and bad things followed.
My own husband refused to see a doctor about his persistent abdominal pains until one night he was in such agony, I had to take him to the ER. Turns out, he had a serious infection, but his thinking was that he was being a wimp. eeesh.
I don’t think you’re being hysterical at all. When pain lasts a week or more and self-medication has failed, that’s when it’s time to see a doctor. Even I follow that advice now.
When they finally (!!!) started selling yeast infection treatments over the counter in Canada, they made sure to always say “See your doctor if this is your first time.” In other words, best not to self-diagnose until you’ve been doctor-diagnosed and you know what’s happening.
Hi there Orual, I’m having exactly the same issue.
I usually have to get the Canestan (our version of Monistat) cos mine don’t go away on their own, but it always results in relief within 3 hours. I complete the 3-day course of treatment, but it always, ALWAYS resolves. Except, not this time.
Today is day 4, and it’s just as nasty as it was on the first day.
So my hypochondria is… is it something else? Is it a resistant yeast, if there is such a thing? What the hell is going on down there?
My issue is that it’s kinda hard for a guy to just rock up to the urgent care medical centre to have a vaginal yeast infection looked at. It tends to cause some kind of brain implosion among the staff (“how could you possibly have a vaginal yeast infection??”) However, my own trans-friendly GP has a waiting list of at least a week. I don’t know if I can hold out that long.
My quandry is: repeat the treatment and hope it goes away, or brave the scariness of a doctor who isn’t used to dealing with a guy with non-standard equipment?
Do you have the clumpy discharge that kind of smells like bread dough? If not, and the discharge is just opaque and smells fairly fishy, my guess would be that you have bacterial vaginosis (BV) instead of a yeast infection, in which case, the yeast treatments would not help at all in the best case and make it worse in the worst case. There are no over the counter treatments for BV, and they do not go away by themselves. You will have to see a doctor.
A BV infection is caused by things like: Using deodorant tampons, wiping from back to front (or anything else that gets fecal bacteria into the vagina), using soap as a sexual lubricant, which kills off the good bacteria and lets the bad ones take over.
Nup, looks just like every other yeast infection I ever had- clumpy, yeasty smelling, and brought on by a particular sort of lube that has too much sugar in it for my body to deal with.
It’s just more persistant than any other I’ve ever had.
Phraser - well, a yeast infection is not only caused by the introduction of yeast but also by the lack of the good bacteria that normally keep it at bay. Maybe your entire population of good bacteria left and there is no one left manning the fort? Eating yogurt is supposed to help re-establish the good bacteria down there. I have also heard of women who insert plain unsweetend yogurt down there because the direct contact works faster at re-establishing your good bacteria population, but I am not a doctor, so I don’t know if I would go that extreme, especially since using a sugary lube causes the issue for you in the first place. (and are you sure none of that has lingered?) Me, I would be throwing that lube away and never use it again, but that is just me.
If I were you, I would make the appointment with the trans friendly doctor, eat at least one serving of yogurt every day as well as doing the medicine in the mean time, then cancel the appointment if it clears up before then. But that is just my opinion. Up to you.
phraser I think you’d be better off(embarassment-wise) not claiming it’s a vaginal yeast infection. As far as I know all yeast infections are caused by the same bacteria- Candida- including that thrush one babies get, so it’s not like just calling it a “yeast infection” period is going to keep them from knowing how to treat you properly; vaginal is only accurate when it’s you know, vaginal. This site calls it a “penial” yeast infection even http://www.msu.edu/user/eisthen/yeast/men.html Since men do get them, the doctor will probably be able to treat you without giving you the sort of bemused looks we got from the vet when we brought in a duck
God, I’m glad I’ve yet to have to deal with them. I wonder what precentage of women haven’t had them by their mid-twenties, since they seem pretty common from all the complaints you hear.
Eat some yogurt, buy some vagisil itch relief cream to go along with the Monistat and watch yourself carefully.
Yeast infections are the devil’s spawn…but will go away with the introduction of some “aid”.
Chow down on the yogurt!
Oh, and DO NOT take a warm tub bath…will make it worse. Shower only and pat yourself DRY after baths and visits to the potty.
If it doesn’t clear up you may have nonspecific vaginitis or another problem that is hateful enough to make you scratch yourself in public. Hang in there.
Anoter tip I rarely see mentioned: don’t use saliva as a lubricant.
My fiancee used to get fierce and frequent yeast infections and vaginitis when we first started being active, and it would always happen a day or two after an especially vigorous romp.
Her GYN was stumped as to the source, but antibiotics usually cleared it up within a week. Until I figured out what it was, though, it became very frustrating.
Saliva is full of bacteria and other bugs that just don’t belong in da coochie. Save your spit for swappin’ face to face.
I did do that once, but then I had to contend with the wide-eyed looks of horror from the doctors when I dropped trou.
See, it’s not impossible to be a man with a vagina, it’s just kinda unexpected if you don’t warn people.
I know of a guy in the USA who had ovarian cancer, and couldn’t find a doctor willing to treat him (hooray for prejudice) which is why I’m wary about doctors these days.
Thanks for the info and advice people.
Time to go buy some unsweetened yoghurt :rolleyes: and chuck that nasty sugary free sample of lube into the bin.
phraser, you might be better off with lactobac from the healthfood shop. It’s the dried version of the bacillus in yoghurt and it’s a lot more bang for your buck. It’s a practitioner only supplement but I’ve never had problems buying it OTC.
Garlic wrapped in cheesecloth, tea tree oil pessaries ( a couple of drops of tea tree EO in solid coconut oil), cider vinegar in a bath can all help. A tampon dipped in yoghurt which has tea tree oil or garlic or both in it can sting like buggery but can also help. On the medical side of things I’ve not had yeast problems at all since using diflucan 5 years ago. But I don’t know how expensive that is here and I suspect it’s an authority prescription.
This hideous muggy weather can’t be helping things either. Blech.
Phraser, I get them pretty regularly and have found the only way to make sure they go away if they are fierce is to do the full 6 day treatment, the one and 3 just do not do the job sometimes.
You may also want to look into the acidophilus and related tablets as a regular part of your routine.
Yogurt is good, I don’t know if it helped, but it did seem to. But as it turns out, it seems that the problem of the yeast infection (which it was, and the Monistat has cleared up, mostly) was compounded by what seems to have been an allergic reaction to the itch cream that came along with it. Bad burning itchies from the allergic reaction getting confused with the yeast infection caused my massive discomfort. (The Vagisil, incidentally, also caused painful burning, much to my dismay) It is all is clearing up nicely now though, praise be.
Man is that a bad place to get a rash…
Yeah, those itch relief creams burn for a while…but when it finally cools down the AHHHHH relief is so well worth it.
I read above that someone recommended putting yogurt and something else on a tampon and inserting it OMG…I am pretty strict on what goes in there and that sounds so weird to me. I mean…well, what goes up must come down…and how are you gonna explain that to your doctor if it didn’t work? Sounds weird to me. I guess I’ll itch next time while waiting for my normal remedy to work…cause I’m too much of a chicken to attempt that!
On another note, eating the yogurt does wonders for me. If I EVER have to take antibiotics I ALWAYS stock up on yogurt. They keep the yeast infections at bay. If I ever forget and take a couple days with no yogurt in my diet…I’m itchin’ like the devil in no time at all. I’d rather founder on yogurt than have to scratch in public…haha.
