Welcome back to Vulvodynia Overload and welcome to the second post on this blog. (It’s nice to know the first post didn’t scare off too many people) In all honesty, I did not know that I had the confidence and strength to share something like this. I thought once people had read the first blog I would be ridiculed and laughed at but the responses I have received have been incredible. I feel immensely proud of where I am at today and so ready to share the most intimate parts of myself and this condition, with the hopes to help others as much as I can.
September 2018 – The beginning of my nightmare
I was 19 years old, just started the second year of my university degree and completely healthy and happy. Within the first few months of being back at university, I began to feel symptoms of a yeast infection or in other terms Thrush (or so I thought). I had never had thrush before despite being sexually active for roughly 3 years prior, (I should mention I am in a long - term relationship and have been for the past 6 years) but obviously was very familiar with the infection (As most females typically are).
Before I go any further with this story, I cannot express enough how important it is to see a doctor if you feel like you may have a yeast infection. I know that it’s easier and a lot less hassle to use over the counter treatments, and for some these may work, however, my stupidness and laziness lead to three of the worst years of my life.
Rant over and back to the story which you’re all clearly dying to know. I decided to grab an over the counter thrush treatment (big mistake in the long run) This did resolve my infection and I carried on life as normal, enjoying studying my degree and making memories with my favourite people. 5/6 weeks passed and oddly enough I began to feel the exact same symptoms so off I went to grab another over the counter thrush treatment. This quickly cleared up and again I though nothing of it. Fast forward to July 2019 and I had spent the past 10/11 months suffering with recurrent yeast infections. (You’re all probably yelling at your screens whilst reading this as to why I allowed to this continue to happen for such a long time and why I never consulted a doctor and here’s why – I was embarrassed). In July, after what felt like the millionth time of experiencing these symptoms, I found that the treatments I had usually used were no longer working. During this time the only person I spoke to about the recurrence of this infection was my boyfriend, who finally convinced me to see a doctor. I explained in much detail, what I was feeling, how often and what I had been doing to treat this. After a long chat I had several swabs done and was sent home to await my results. No yeast infection or bacterial infection were present I was told over the phone. Hearing this would have made many people happy, no infection, right? However I just began to feel extremely paranoid and scared as it felt like nobody had a clue what was going on with me. What happened next, still to this day, baffles me completely. The doctor I had seen was very honest with me about not knowing what was going on and decided to just prescribe me a treatment for a bacteria infection, after explaining to me that this was not what I had. Looking back, I should have looked for help elsewhere but I had full trust in my health care provider, a professional, that they knew what they were doing. I’ll be the first to tell you, this may not always be the case.
So, it began, the first of many, many treatments. I am going to wrap up this week’s post here because I’m aware there is a lot of information above and quite honestly, as I am sat here typing this, the overwhelming feeling of how low and alone I felt during this time is creeping over me and I don’t think I’m one hundred percent ready to return there just yet.
Again, if you’ve made it this far, thank you and I apologise for the seriousness of this post, I promise the jokes will return shortly. Next week’s post will continue with my journey as well as introduce you to the person I am most grateful for, who has helped me and continues to help me every day, who went through this as much as I did and who loved me no matter what.
If you cant wait another week for answers and don’t want to read another long blog post (I don’t blame you), my email is tiffanyroche@hotmail.co.uk and my Instagram is tiff_rochexo.
If you take anything away from this post let it be, if I could go back and do things differently, I’d happily take 10 minutes of embarrassment over 3 years of pain, discomfort, and despair.
Tiff x