After showering or swimming, make sure your vaginal area is thoroughly clean and dry.
Thrush
It’s more common than you think. Thrush is a vaginal yeast infection caused by excessive growth of natural yeast-like fungus, called candida albicans.
If you’ve noticed vaginal irritation and inflammation, you may have a yeast infection. This occurs when the good bacteria in your vagina cannot keep the fungus under control, or when your immune system is weakened. Just so you know, thrush is not a sexually transmitted infection.
Thrush Symptoms
You might have thrush if you experience:
- Itchy vagina / vulva
- Soreness, burning and redness around the entrance to your vagina (vulva)
- Slight swelling of your vaginal lips (labia)
- Cottage cheese-like white discharge
These symptoms aren’t uncommon:
- Pain during sex
- Thick discharge
- Red and swollen labia
- Burning around your vulva
- Pain when you urinate
- Sores in your vaginal area
Cracked skin around your vulva
- You are experiencing thrush for the first time
- You get thrush frequently, or if it returns in less than 2 months
- There is no improvement in your symptoms within three days, or if they've not disappeared within seven days
- You are pregnant or breastfeeding
- You have multiple sexual partners
- You are under 12 years old
- You have fever, chills, nausea, or vomiting
- You feel abdominal pain
- You have previously experienced an allergic reaction to other thrush medications
Thrush treatment
Vaginal yeast infection is treated with medication available over the counter from a pharmacy or on prescription from your doctor.
Treatment can be quite straightforward. To treat the infection, you can use a treatment that contains the active ingredient clotrimazole or fluconazole. Choose from the oral pill, pessary or internal vaginal cream. These products all treat your infection, but different people prefer different treatment options. External thrush creams will help to soothe your symptoms such as itching.
Remember: just treating the itchiness with an external cream won’t get rid of your infection so don’t forget to treat your thrush at the source, with oral capsule or vaginal solutions, such as an internal cream or pessary.
You can buy a Canesten combi pack containing both the internal and external treatments, such as CanesOral Duo or Canesten 1 Day Pessary & External Cream.