Beware Of Self-Medication. Avoid It With Passion – Part 2

The first part of this story, “Beware Of Self-Medication. Avoid It With Passion – Part 1,” was published on this blog a few days ago.  Please, check it out for the beginning of this story.

Finding Relief

You’d think pouring mouthwash on my burning vulva would constitute a turning point, but it was still a little over a year before I was finally referred to a vulva specialist.

She ran her gloved finger around my labia as all the doctors I’d seen had done before. I tried not to flinch. When she was done, I pried my legs out of the stirrups, and sat straight, gloomily awaiting another nonanswer or ineffective home remedy I’d already tried a thousand times.

The first words out of the specialist’s mouth were that she was sorry for what I was going through—she couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live with so much pain. It was the first “sorry” I heard from a doctor that felt genuine.

Instead of talking about yogurt or wet bathing suits or unscented soap, she asked me detailed question after question. She looked into my eyes and listened to all my symptoms. “You have BV—bacterial vaginosis. BV has similar symptoms to a yeast infection, which is why you’ve been poorly diagnosed all these years. I wish you would have seen me sooner. You could have saved yourself a lot of pain.”

I was too stunned to speak. “Apply the cream here and here, in this motion,” she said, referencing a drawing she made with a ballpoint pen. That’s it. That was all I needed to do to end the nightmare between my legs.

I quickly came to call the prescription my miracle cream because, with it, my vagina healed. I don’t know why it was the first time I’d heard of the cream, or why no other doctor had thought to test me for BV.

Perhaps in all the doctor appointments, I’d gone to, I was too eager to accept the easiest diagnosis. Perhaps it would have been better to make my doctors listen to my voice, to see the pain in my face. With the right diagnosis, I finally found relief.

When my cousins asked, I said my vagina was healthy and meant it. I no longer received Itchy Vagina packages from my aunts. I stayed in my bathing suit as long as I wanted. I threw away the disgusting yogurt.

Today the Listerine incident is a funny story I retell for my girlfriends. They think it’s a riot every time. And I admit, it is a little funny now that the Listerine bottle is safely back on the vanity.

I write this story not as another funny joke to tell at parties, but as a rallying cry for women to speak up to their medical providers.

For too long I trusted the men and women in front of me. I listened to their prognosis before I’d even finished uttering my symptoms. “Is this common?” I would ask, my voice getting quieter every time.

The doctors would shrug their shoulders, offer me a sympathetic smile, and ask me which pharmacy I used. Time and time again, I believed in their expertise and denied my body.

It wasn’t until the specialist looked me in the eye and really listened that I realized that question wasn’t important. It shouldn’t matter that my pain was common.

It was unbearable and I didn’t—shouldn’t—have had to grit my teeth and accept it. What I needed was to listen to my body and advocate for myself. And to stay away from the Listerine.

The writer of this story is fortunate to be alive to share her story with the rest of us.

The very important thing she said about her experience which I wish to repeat here is: “I Poured Listerine on My Vulva in a Desperate Attempt to Cure a Yeast Infection – Do not try this at home.”

I want all girls and women to learn from her mistake, as well as take her advice.

To everybody, boy, girl, man or woman, I say: Beware of self-medication. Avoid it with passion.

If you have any health challenge, no matter how small or minor you might think it to be, please, please, please, endeavor to consult your doctor about it.

No matter how desperate you may be, please, do not take it upon yourself to handle any of your health challenges on your own with your layman’s knowledge.

Always consult your professionally trained doctor, whose job is to diagnose and offer you the right treatment.
Never gamble with your life because not everybody may be as lucky as the writer of the above story who’s alive to share her experience with us.

Beware of self-medication. Avoid it with passion.

                                                                                                                                                                           THE END.