Ladies, the vast majority of us have been there – you wake up, pee, wipe and notice a bit more than average discharge. Maybe there’s a texture or an odor or just a general “that’s not rightness” and you know your vagina is crying out for help. This is not only super inconvenient, but it is also embarrassing. Society has done a wonderful job of teaching women to be insecure about all things “down there” so when something is actually amiss we tend to feel an unnecessary level of yucky-ness. I guess I still have remnants of vaginal insecurity to work through and this triggered it. Do I smell? Am I clean? Do I have an STD? When can I have sex again? Will s/he notice?
As these unhelpful thoughts raced around my head, I did the obvious next step and googled my symptoms. When I talked myself out of believing I had some rare form of ovarian cancer (thanks WebMD), I settled into the fact that I probably had either a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis. Bleh. Racing towards a cure, I began googling natural remedies. I was on a strict timeline for a cure as I had a hot date the next evening and did not have time for a vaginal revolt. Google gave me all sorts of natural ideas that I jumped headfirst into trying.
- Shove a probiotic capsule up your vagina. Check.
- Shove a peeled clove of garlic up your vagina. Check.
- Shove greek yogurt up your vagina. Check.
My bestie told me that I was the vagina edition of the story “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” Fun fact: garlic up your vagina can be tasted in your mouth almost immediately and my breath smelled of garlic for the rest of the day. Pro tip: read all the directions before acting. I realized that, while the probiotic capsule would dissolve eventually, the garlic clove may not. Hmmmmmm. I was supposed to tie a piece of string/floss around it and make a garlic tampon type structure. Crap. Luckily, I have long fingers and had used a large garlic clove.
It was a weird 24 hours, but I’m happy to report that the garlic clove came out, all the symptoms went away, and the hot date went phenomenally. Little did he know that he was enjoying the leftovers of an elaborate vagina parfait.