Why can't my GP sort my smelly vag?

[BeyondMortifying]

I'm posting here for traffic under a different name....

I posted about this issue before over a year ago but can't find the thread or username (habitual namechanger)

Basically what the title says... there is a noticeable odour down there so bad that I have to wear a pantyliner and change my knickers mid day. I cant weat the same jeans more than one day as they STINK. Its fucking mortifying. Its deffinatley noticeable to other people aswell, DP was asking about a weird smell in the bedroom.. my knickers which I hadn't yet taken down to the washing machine.

I went to my GP over a year ago, after treating my self for thrush, cutting out scented bath products/ sanitary products and seeing no improvement.
Was treated for BV... over the year I've had 3 different courses of oral antibiotics aimed at treating it and a cream. The antibiotics give me thrush as they are so strong, so then I have to treat that but the smell persists. GP can't keep prescribing them, understandably, and clearly they aren't working. I've had a course of "general antibiotics" just to see if it made a difference. I've had the coil out and a new one fitted. Nothing it working and its just awful.

I cut out onion, garlic and spices from my diet for nearly 2 and a half months but it made no difference. I eat pineapple every day, no difference. I've bought those pessery sort of things from superdrug and tried those. Nothing is bloody working and I'm at a point where I cant go out the house for more than a couple of hours before I need to get home for a wash before I have a waft of rotten vag about me.

Just as a background, one day I smelled totally normal, then over the course of a week I noticed a rank smell which has just never gone. Posters on my previous thread suggested lost tampon but over a year on and one never appeared, I've not died from TSS so presumably that wasnt the course.

GP is getting sick of me, I can tell. What am I missing that could be causing this??

I thought of this fish odour disease

Only because I remember hearing a similar story as yours on a a medical programme, could have been embarrassing bodies??
Anyway it was the above.

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I was just going to mention the same as @InvisibleToEveryone as I also remember seeing something on Embarrassing Bodies
www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=149212

Have you had your blood sugar levels checked? Try coconut oil straight on your vag.

I had BV 3 times last year. The antibiotics the Dr prescribed gave me awful oral thrush and made me feel quite ill. However it did clear the BV.
On the 3rd occasion I was asked if I'd prefer a suppository antibiotic which I said yes too. Much better, no thrush anywhere and cleared up within days, and so far hasn't returned!

On a side note, this is totally the wrong thing to do, but I had to use tampons to 'keep the smell in' so to speak. Hope you get it sorted soon

If it started after birth I would be concerned about any retained rotting tissue. I'm not sure if that would present more symptoms though?

There is some excellent advice on here, OP. Whatever you decide to do, err on the side of caution.

I can't believe your GO won't refer you, that's shocking. If insist on a referral and make a complaint.

Women's health issues are so often ignored

Could it be that you've changed your laundry detergent ? When you and partner have intercourse could it be due to a condom and a reaction higher up ? Or possibly as gross as it sounds if he you know ... doesn't use a condom and possibly the mix of different PH balance creates a smell ?

@BeyondMortifying

Have you had any blood tests?

I've had repeated bouts of thrush that just won't fuck off since June;I've been going back and forth to the doctors;I've had multiple suggestions as to the cause including BV when one doctor last month finally decided to refer me for blood tests to check for any underlying causes and hey presto I have diabetes and chronic kidney disease which I've now began treatment for (meds and lifestyle changes)so the bloody thrush May have actually saved my life as if left untreated then there's some horrible repercussions.

Definitely change surgeries, get a female doctor, demand a referral. If yiu can't t do that complain to the manager of the surgery you're at. If no change find out your rights.

It's probably already been said, but please go for your overdue smear. If there's something affecting your cervix, it could be the cause of the smell.

As a GP after taking your history and examining you, I would ask you to self refer (how it works here) to Genitourinary medicine at our local hospital if I had exhausted all possible investigations and treatments and things were still no better.

Some good advice here. Sorry you’re having such a crap time. It’s also worth using the Dettol laundry detergent in with your wash (or the other supermarket copies), and use powder rather than gel tablets and no fabric softener.

You mentioned up thread that it varies, is it worth keeping a food diary and linking it to your diet, I always smell dreadful after chip shop fish, which I love but avoid now and bistro gravy which I never liked much anyway so don’t have at all now.

OP I had recurrent thrush a few years ago and can recommend these probiotic suppositories. Use them overnight with a good sanitary pad as they're awfully messy, but they do put your PH levels back on an even keel.

Worth trying, although obviously won't help if you have an infection.

You need your smear done asap with swabs and someone to actually look at your cervix. Also a raft of general bloods to check glucose and infection markers.
If all that is negative, push for a referral.

Poor you. I had a very weird smell for a while too. The only word I could think to describe it was acrid. Not fishy, not yeasty but very weird. For me it just sorted itself out eventually and I never got to the bottom of it. Gp was equally useless and gave all the "usual" BV and thrush meds which did nothing. Hope you can get it sorted though.

Could it be a rectovaginal fistula? I would be worried that it was a bowel leakage issue if it smells of rotting food.

Apologies for not reading all previous replies, but has the GP done an internal examination?

OP you say you've had STI checks, but did those tests include a syphilis test? Unfortunately this is becoming more common and not always tested as standard.

Your gp should be doing swabs to rule out infection and BV. If you read up on BV it sometimes doesn't go after antibiotics. I kept having it recurrently for around a year and was given metronidazole which I had to have each time.

I used to get something similar, I’ve no idea what it was but it was worse around my period and for a week or two after despite being super clean and changing tampons very regularly. I’d get maybe a week or so a month where i didn’t smell it. When I moved to a pill where I get no periods I don’t get the smell anymore.

Is it definitely coming from inside? Could it be stress sweat? You have a lot of apocrine glands around your vulva, and they secrete a different type of sweat when you're stressed that bacteria then convert to odour. Hot wash your pants / trousers etc, and use bar soap and double wash in the shower.

Reviving this thread, as I have had the same/similar problem for way too many years now, a constant battle of Canestan pessaries, pro bio gels and some antibiotics.
Suspect discharge, discomfort and itichyness was driving me insane as well as impacting my ability to walk /cycle and exercise in general as any sweatiness made it worse.
I resorted to trying every anti fungal cream I could get my hands on. Which led me to Daktarin, which is an oral gel with miconazole in it. I had it in the fridge from when my son had oral thrush. I figured if it was safe enough to put in my mouth then my vagina shouldn't complain.

So this is not as simple as whacking a pessary in in popping some pills but I REALLY feel this has worked for me and I'm pain/irritation/stinky free now.
I decided (this is obviously not medical advice) that any of nasty stuff had to be 'scraped' out before putting the gel in. Don't contemplate this unless you have stubby nails on your index finger. So yes I dragged all the mucus out that I could possibly reach and then put as much as Daktarin gel as I could put in every crevice possible in the vagina and up to the cervix.
Not fun, but I reasoned that if this worked it would save me yet another trip to the GP with my legs open getting swabbed again. I've had enough of that!!

Anyway it did bloody work for me, all the nastiness gone and feel flipping brilliant. I picked up another tube to have on hand in case I feel like I need to use it again.
It's only 5 quid which is nothing in comparison to what I've spent on medication and anti fungals.
Personally my theory is the pessaries never quite reached every molecule of problematic mucus, so a week or so later it just started multiplying again.

I really hope this is useful to someone, as like others I had tried everything else suggested.