Boric acid for YI - how long to clear up?
Hi there, everyone,
I'm currently dealing with a yeast infection from hell that I can't get rid of, no matter what I do. I'm quite prone to yeast infections - my gynecologist suspected this might be related to my copper IUD - and I feel like I always have a kind of chronic underlying YI that decides to flare up from time to time. Generally when that happens I can manage it with Diflucan and get it back under "control"...but it seems to never really go away. Any small variation from normal - sex, my period, stress, alcohol - makes it comes back with a vengeance. Even more upsettingly, this time, I don't just have the standard vaginal irritation, it also seems to have migrated back toward the rectal area, so that I basically have itchy, uncomfortable diaper rash along the entire - ahem - undercarriage. It is really unpleasant and discouraging, to say the least.
I went to the doctor about a week and a half ago, who confirmed that I am indeed dealing with yeast (she confirmed this visually because I had already taken a Diflucan at that point, which often throws off the yeast swab test and gives a false negative). I told her I was worried about herpes (because I have a persistent phobia about herpes, and know that it can present in the same way as a YI), and she said it was definitely yeast; she had no doubt about that. She prescribed three doses of Diflucan and two different topical ointments, which I've used for the past week and have made no difference at all.
I know that some people have used boric acid to treat YIs, and so I bought some online and started inserting suppositories (vaginally) twice a day, starting about three days ago. This may be making a *small* amount of difference by now, though I continue to have the typical yeasty discharge (the encouraging part is that it seems to be getting increasingly watery/diluted, which is making me hope that it's breaking down/becoming less potent through the introduction of the boric acid). However, the boric acid is only helping with the vaginal YI, so today I also found a 10% boric acid cream which I've ordered and plan to use in the back area to see if that will help, too. I'm a bit discouraged, though, because despite my now three days of using the boric acid suppositories, things have not cleared up entirely, though a lot of the people who reviewed the suppositories indicated that they experienced relief within a single day! Then again, it seemed that many of those reviewers were using boric acid to treat BV and not yeast, so I wonder if the effects are quicker for BV with boric acid than they are with yeast...?
I intend to keep using the suppositories (and boric acid cream, once it arrives) for about 1-2 weeks to see if they kick in and start treating the problem. But in the interim, I'm wondering if anyone here has had experiences with treating YIs with boric acid. If so, how long did it take you to see some change in your symptoms?
Thank you very much for your help!
I'm currently dealing with a yeast infection from hell that I can't get rid of, no matter what I do. I'm quite prone to yeast infections - my gynecologist suspected this might be related to my copper IUD - and I feel like I always have a kind of chronic underlying YI that decides to flare up from time to time. Generally when that happens I can manage it with Diflucan and get it back under "control"...but it seems to never really go away. Any small variation from normal - sex, my period, stress, alcohol - makes it comes back with a vengeance. Even more upsettingly, this time, I don't just have the standard vaginal irritation, it also seems to have migrated back toward the rectal area, so that I basically have itchy, uncomfortable diaper rash along the entire - ahem - undercarriage. It is really unpleasant and discouraging, to say the least.
I went to the doctor about a week and a half ago, who confirmed that I am indeed dealing with yeast (she confirmed this visually because I had already taken a Diflucan at that point, which often throws off the yeast swab test and gives a false negative). I told her I was worried about herpes (because I have a persistent phobia about herpes, and know that it can present in the same way as a YI), and she said it was definitely yeast; she had no doubt about that. She prescribed three doses of Diflucan and two different topical ointments, which I've used for the past week and have made no difference at all.
I know that some people have used boric acid to treat YIs, and so I bought some online and started inserting suppositories (vaginally) twice a day, starting about three days ago. This may be making a *small* amount of difference by now, though I continue to have the typical yeasty discharge (the encouraging part is that it seems to be getting increasingly watery/diluted, which is making me hope that it's breaking down/becoming less potent through the introduction of the boric acid). However, the boric acid is only helping with the vaginal YI, so today I also found a 10% boric acid cream which I've ordered and plan to use in the back area to see if that will help, too. I'm a bit discouraged, though, because despite my now three days of using the boric acid suppositories, things have not cleared up entirely, though a lot of the people who reviewed the suppositories indicated that they experienced relief within a single day! Then again, it seemed that many of those reviewers were using boric acid to treat BV and not yeast, so I wonder if the effects are quicker for BV with boric acid than they are with yeast...?
I intend to keep using the suppositories (and boric acid cream, once it arrives) for about 1-2 weeks to see if they kick in and start treating the problem. But in the interim, I'm wondering if anyone here has had experiences with treating YIs with boric acid. If so, how long did it take you to see some change in your symptoms?
Thank you very much for your help!