I've been watching this thread with interest, and now feel that perhaps I might throw in my three penn'orth..
I'm a year or so post menopause, but my experience as a teen and young woman have come back clearly to me, and all the faff and bother that constant moistness can inflict on daily life.
I found that, in my teens, my knickers and trousers were in a constant state of dampness in the crotch area. Not a copious amount of constantly flowing fluid - but after a few hours at school or work, I was uncomfortably damp crotched. Taking a clean pair of knickers to work with me didn't help much because the trousers had already been damped on. So I was putting on dry knicks, but the outside trousers were still damping them from the outside while they continued getting damped from the inside. It simply didn't work.
I felt a bit as if there must be something wrong with me. Nobody else seemed to have this problem, or at least it wasn't a 'thing' that anybody talked about. It was embarrassing and demoralising. I took to folding up toilet paper to place in the gusset of my pants to keep my knickers dry. It wasn't ideal because toilet paper isn't really up to the job, it shreds, and occasionally became displaced and started to slide down the inside of my tights or trousers, which involved a slow hobble to the ladies to put myself to rights. This was 40 years ago.
Imagine my joy when in latter years somebody invented panty liners!!
a) It was the absolute ideal answer to my problems! It stuck to your
knicks and wouldn't slide down inside your trousers!
b) But most importantly, it was a subliminal message to me that other women needed them as well. I wasn't alone. It was a proper acknowledged woman problem, and there was more than one of me, and that it had finally been recognised. Consequently, I didn't feel different or abnormal any more. Didn't have to keep nipping to the loo to make sure the folded up toilet paper was in fair condition and not halfway down my tights. I know now that there were probably lots of other women struggling with the same problem. But nobody said so, or talked about it.
For the record. I don't have copious amounts of discharge every minute of the day. It's more of a slow but relentless build up over hours. Since my teens and the advent of panty liners and having had children, I've consulted doctors about it, who've told me that all my tests are normal and that perhaps wearing a panty liner might help
with the dampness and that my vaginal excretions are perfectly normal. I've made it through my teens all the way to the menopause without once ever having the dreaded THRUSH. I have never in my life had thrush. I could say that that panty liners don't cause thrush because I've used them for 25 years and never had thrush. But maybe I'm just thrush resistant. Maybe some people get thrush at the drop of a hat.
I'm also a knicker bleacher. All my black knicks are bleached at the gusset.
Also!! For the NHS nurse bod who says that she's never encountered this level of discharge. Why would you? Women coming for a smear or a scan would have had a shower and clean pants in the hour or two previous! They are coming for a health check regarding the possibility of having cervical cancer! They naturally want to present as clean. There is never any discussion of vaginal discharge.
Why would they engage you in that sort of conversation?
I've been for several, and that just doesn't happen.
They are checking if you might have cervical cancer. The appointments are 10 minutes apart. They want to get you through the process as fast as poss Quite rightly so.
I have my doubts that somebody going for a cervical smear would engage in a conversation with the medical staff about her problems with having copious amounts of vaginal discharge.
To the nurse in question. Of COURSE you have not come across this problem. Your patient chose not to tell you about it.