Re: Vaginal irritation...advice??

I used to have the same problem. It is caused my food allergies . I had problems with vulvar swelling, paper cut like tears, painful intercourse, bleeding, scabbing, etc. Different symptoms at different times. To get rid of the infection... do not use Canesten or those nasty painful yeast infection over the counter cures. Much cheaper and painless is boric acid suppositories. You can buy boric acid powder at the pharmacy and size 0 or 00 gel capsules at the pharmacy or health food store to make your own boric acid capsules. Insert 1 capsule twice a day. I normally did it before bed and when I woke up. Do this for 1-2 weeks (depending on how bad the infection is). For 1 week insert 1 boric acid capsule and 1 acidophilus capsule every day. It is important to find out your food sensitivities . You cannot use the normal allergist prick test because that test is less than 5% accurate. It is only good for very severe allergies. To find out your sensitivities, you will need to learn to listen to your body. Do an Elimination Diet (you can learn more about this by searching google.com for elimination diet) It will take awhile to cycle through all of the common allergy foods: dairy, wheat, corn, caffine, soy, sugar, night shade vegetables, chocolate, red meat, eggs, citrus, etc. Mine were dairy, corn and caffine. I can tell because when I eat one of these foods... about 10-15min later, I will have vuvlar pain starting to occure. Any time I eat any kind of sensitive food, that is my signal. If I eat any of the mentioned foods, I will get a yeast infection, vuvlar pain, and swelling. I can now catch it quickly by inserting a boric acid capsule right away and only take it a few times and the pain subsides. To do an elimination diet, just remove 1 or more common allergy foods from your diet for 3-4 weeks, then you eat the purest form of the food. I started with dairy. At the end of a month I tested milk and cheese Day1: 1-2 glasses of milk with meal, Day2: none, Day3: 2-3 pieces of real cheese with meal, Day4: none. It can take 10min-48 hours for symptoms to occure and they may not just be vulvar pain. When I went without coffee, I had a 2 week withdrawl headache... so symptoms can vary. BTW, I went thought many doctors, a lot of time and a lot of pain before I discovered what was actually wrong. I hope this is help spare you some pain and agony of waiting for drugs that will do nothing for you. Good Luck! Doing the Elimination Diet takes a lot time and a lot of will power, but it is the most helpful thing I have done for myself during all of this.

Jennifer *8-)