Recurrent thrush in 5yo

[Mummyella]

My daughter has had genital thrush since she was about 2 months old. She is now 5 and if I don't treat her with anti fungal cream every couple of days it flares up again. I don't think this can be normal . Anyone else come across this and have any ideas. The GP just keeps giving me more and more cream but she is getting a bit big for me to be happy inspecting her bottom all the time .

bless her,

bump for you

Thanks HedKandi

someone help here please

OK, so now i KNOW its not normal

Thanks for bumping HedKandi. It's back to the doc with my assertive mummy face on.

have you tried treating her entire system rather than just her bottom end???

when I have recurrent thrush I find I need tablets as well as cream, and also actimils (well, dairy-free types for me), to settle me inside my gut.

you really need to push for finding out why she is getting this all the time. my DD's had thrush a few times when tiny, but never since being potty trained unless on antibiotics (which are known for altering the system)

Hi, As psychomum5 says you probably need to treat her entire system. You could try giving her a good probiotic, not the drinks like Actimal though as apparantly they contain lots of sugar. My dd has had vaginal thrush before (after antibitics, has your dd had lots of antibiotics?)and I gave her a probiotic called 'Udos Choice', which is meant to be a good one.

You can buy a homeopathic remedy from Holland and Barrett, its made by Nelsons and is called Candida thats meant to get rid of thrush and it is safe for little ones.

Does she have a discharge and if so have they ever swabed it to check it is thrush and not an infection?

Also you say you have to treat her every couple of days with the cream, have you ever tried not putting the cream on for a week or so and seeing what happens? My Gp said to use the cream for 2 weeks and then completely stop for a week.

Hope any of this helps :-)

Sorry psychomum5 just noticed you have the Actimil drinks, that wasn't a dig at you, i'd just heard they weren't the best for thrush because they contain sugar.

oh no, I don;t have actimil, I just couldn;t think of the right name for mine (I am dairy allergic so have some from the health food shop), it was just the first name that popped into my head for a pre-biotic something (IYGWIM)

Thanks, I will give the probiotics a try. Have tried leaving her with no cream for up to three weeks but is gets bad (and painful) really quickly. The main reason I think it is thrush is that clotrimazole cream soothes it immediately and keeps it away if I use it every few days. Poor little lump, I really have to get to the bottom of it.

There are certain things commonly eaten that feed the thrush. It might be worth investigating her diet and trying to put her on an anti thrush diet for a few weeks to try to beat it. Look here, particularly the paragraph about nutrition on page 2.

DD suffered terribly from about 2 months old too. She's now 2.2 and we've not had a recurrence (please don't let me jinx this) since she was about 20 months.

Two things worked for us..

1. Saw a homeopath. DD took 3 tiny homeopathic tablets a day for 5 days - after just 2 tablets there was a massive improvement, gone completely after 3 days. And if it hadn't worked the homeopath was willing to provide a re-assessment and another treatment without further cost.

2. Actimel. She had lots of antibiotics from about 17 months for recurring unpleasantries and it flared up again - we'd moved away from first homeopath and I wanted to try anything to stop the anitbiotics from causing another major flare up. It worked. Admittedly, if I hadn't been in new area with 18 month old and newborn and knew where to get other stuff I wouldn't have tried actimel but it worked

Good luck

Hi mummyella
This is a really old post so I'm hoping your on mumsnet to help.
Did you ever manage to get an answer for your daughter?
My daughter is 2 and gets thrush every other week. Any help from you would be massively appreciated!

I feel your pain, Mummyella, as my 5 year frequently suffers with thrush. We were up until nearly midnight last night with her crying & getting in a state, poor lamb. I'm a little re-assured that so many other mums are going thru it with us!
I am going to reduce sugar and dairy in the first instance to see if that helps and introduce pro-biotic yoghurts into her diet. Also instead of the pharmacy cream I'm going to put plain bio yoghurt on affected area to see how that works.
Good luck
xx