Aibu to distract myself from thrush with a question?

[aliasjoey]

Aargh the itching! I’ve got some Canesten HC Cream, and have also taken acidophilus tablets and actimel.

It started me wondering how anything that you take orally (you can get canesten tablets as well as probiotic drinks etc) could possibly do anything for your vagina? The digestive system isn’t linked to the other parts.

If you get athletes foot, they give you cream/powder not a pill. AIBU to think it’s a con, invented by some middle aged man who thought laydeez were too delicate to do anything down there

Please take my mind off it and reassure me that actimels will magically soothe my itchy fanny...

Actimel is full of sugar which could make it worse. Have you had the proper (fluconazole or something?) treatment tablet?

Pessary?

Think of it like a painkiller-they target the nerve cells ‘despite’ the tablets going into your digestive system.
Thrush tablets actively seek out the candida bacteria and eliminate it, in a similar way.

I think, anyway. Not a pharmacist!

I can't get Canestan tablets here - the pharmacists looked at me like I was mad (I checked with a few different places) and passed me the pessaries instead. One of them put a very large FOR VAGINAL USE sticker on the box to make sure that I really did understand

Have you tried slapping on some natural yoghurt?

If you have an infection on your arm then you take oral antibiotics.

I don't really get what you mean.

Drugs go into your stomach via your mouth then into your bloodstream.

I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but actimel will have no effect whatsoever. It’s been likened to the following by a microbiologist ‘expecting a teaspoon of water to put out a fire’. It simply doesn’t have enough of the active ingredient to help. Have you tried a far stronger probiotic? I use Quest acidophilus plus but there are lots on the market and some of the liquid ones don’t taste like sludge! Good luck.

Obviously I’m talking about oral use, not topical!

You can (and I have had) tablets for fungal nail infections too. They're very strong and are GP prescribed.
Stomach acid doesn't kill off everything. Otherwise pain killers and antibiotics wouldn't work (and we'd never get intestinal parasites or viruses)

I found that taking sugar out of my diet got rid of thrush for once and for all. Don't drink Actimel - it's full of the stuff. You can get generic Clotrimazole pessaries from a pharmacy for around £2, don't fall for the Canesten branding. You need either one of those or a Fluconazole tablet to take orally, else the HC cream won't stand a chance - it treats the external area only.

Fellow thrush sufferer, thanks to a recent course of penicillin.

The itching is also driving me crazy.

Probiotics do sod all.

I've had thrush twice. Both times I have eaten one of those giant pots of live culture yoghurts. Gone within two days. I was amazed!

fluconazole tablets You can buy from amazon for about about a quid.

Cut down in sugar, and maybe carbs.

Weeing before and straight after sex really helps, and I mean straight away, no nice cuddles first.

I use yogurt for thrush, but I don’t eat it

Also flucanazole is amazing.

Slathered natural yoghurt on a tampon and all over my fluff - really soothed it

Canesten Duo is best for me usually but I'm battling a Thrush Monster. Took the tablet yesterday. After half an hour of whimpering this evening and having slapped on the cream, I resorted to a spoonful of nice thick Fage yogurt and I'm now sitting comfortably. I expected to hear hissing and spitting as it made contact with the skin though.

I had thrush coming and going for nearly 4 months of my pregnancy. Could only use the cream so applied it, then loaded an Unscented sanitary towel with the cream and wore it all day.

Oohh, good point about the actimel being full of sugar! I do have some proper acidophiluses so I’ll take more of those.

Yeah I see what you’re saying about drugs make it into the bloodstream... it’s just for the vagina it’s not the most obvious route

You could say that about nearly every drug, you have made me think about it now.

I take ADHD drugs which I suppose is in my head, so the drugs go in my mouth, to my stomach and back to my brain.

Weird.

Flucanazole.

Have looked on amazon.its £6.99 for one...anyone have a link to where it's £2 please

BTW I always buy generic instead of branded, but for some reason this time automatically asked for canesten... maybe the itching was messing with my head

The thread has taken my mind off it though, and given me something to think about re. the actimels. Thank you everyone.

Fluconazole is magical stuff. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

It's absorbed by your digestive tract in to your blood where it goes to fight the fungus.

You can use the acidophilus vaginally! Much more effective.

I had recurrent thrush because I was passing thrush on to my husband during sex who was carrying it without symptoms and passing it back to me. We've both had to be treated for it so it goes away!

Took me till my mid forties to be finally free of thrush, at times it's been perpetual (but I do eat a lot of sugar which feeds thrush apparently). The answer for me is Canesflor probiotics for vaginal use. Pop one in after sex and I've been clear for over a year now. You can pop one in daily if you have an active infection and it clears it in a couple of days (though the pack recommends seven days I think, been so long now that I'm delighted to have forgotten the exact dose). They're pricey, £16 for a pack of 10, but not as pricey as treatment pessaries/cream and they are designed to prevent which is preferable to cure (no suffering).

So delighted I have found something that finally works and I'm free from the curse of recurrent thrush. Just a heads up, they kind of flush out the vagina so you'll have a watery discharge (which is only word I can think of but it's not discharge as such in that there's on goeyness, smell or nastiness, just wetness) so put a sani-pad on just to be sure when you use one.

Here's a trick to managing the itching immediately, as in, within 30 seconds.

Get some 2-3% hydrogen peroxide.

Dilute it about 50/50 with water.

Soak a cloth with it, and use the cloth to wipe your vulva and vagina.

You should notice near-immediate relief for thrush infections. The reason this works is actually the same principle as the probiotics you're taking (which take longer to work but also work longer-term, so it's good you took them, that's what I always do in conjunction with this remedy!).

Acidophilus bacteria, which are protective against thrush, are protective against it because they excrete hydrogen peroxide in small quantities as a primary waste product. Hydrogen peroxide, even at fairly low concentrations, is highly toxic to the candida fungus that causes thrush.

Use this hydrogen peroxide method once a day as long as you're in an active outbreak of it, and apply any topical creams afterward.