How did you overcome contact dermatitis on your vulva? (Vulvar dermatitis)? It’s been over a month now 🥴

Guys I’ve posted on here a few times in conjunction with going to my doctors and let me just say, the medical support for vaginal issues is honesty appalling.

My story is I got a yeast infection just over a month ago. I over treated it. In the span of a week and a half I used canestan 7day, boric acid for 5 days and the oral pill. This got rid of the infection but boy, did my vagina skin not agree.

The inside of my vagina is fine, nothing wrong there. Even the opening area feels normal. But the outside area, my labia lips and anus area have been soooo raw. My doctor told me I have dermatitis from all these products and prescribed me steroids. I’m also waiting to see a gyno for more help because the steroid cream was a lot.

I am honestly kind of afraid to use a steroid cream because of all the other medication I took for this. After a few times I still felt irritated. I’ve been kind of waiting it out and using coconut oil. I’m kind of on pause with treating that because I’m on antibiotics for strep!

Before all this, I had no issues with my vagina at all. I had and currently still have a good hygiene as I shower daily, and only wash with water, I only wear cotton underwear, and as of lately, I’ve only been wearing baggy clothes since this whole thing happened.

If I lie down all day without underwear and do nothing it feels fine but the second I walk too far or sit in the wrong position too long or wipe too hard is irritated. And if I’m moving around all day as I have an active job I come home super sore and irritated. It’s really been bothering my quality of life.

I might be going on vacation in October and have a few formal events coming up in the near future and really don’t want this to be an issue 😞 it’s been so uncomfortable and unexplainable because you can’t really tell people your vagina is sore. I feel so bad for all the people who have ever experienced this before me because I literally wasn’t even aware of this could happen.

How long does it take to go away and what worked for you?

Update;

Since I’ve made this post, I’ve received so many messages and request for what I did.

Where I am at currently, I would say I’m about 90 to 95% back to normal ! This took me over six months to get to that point. After going to the gynecologist, I discovered that using several different methods to treat a stubborn yeast infection, actually led my skin to have some degree of a chemical burn. Personally, I think the boric acid really messed it up because that’s the thing I have never used before, but I also think the combination of everything plus battling a yeast infection made my vaginal skin heavily compromised. I think we sometimes forget how delicate down there is!

What I did to is make a list to help anybody else out there. But I do want to say that I don’t know if it will work for everybody as this is just what worked for me and what I did intuitively. The medical system really didn’t offer me much help because there’s a lot of gaps and vaginal health to be honest (I visited a doctor and gynaecologist around 4-5 times throughout this all). I got prescribed steroid cream but I didn’t use it because I was really afraid as medicated cream and products left me in this position so I was very weary. (Incoming long post)

-stay away from fragrances! I switched my detergent for intimates and pants to a baby detergent with no fragrance. When I washed my hair, I tilted my head upside down to avoid getting fragrance products around my vaginal area. I also used a really gentle body soap on my body. On my vaginal area I just cleaned with water. My gyno said you could use unscented Dove bar soap A LITTLE bit if you want to use a soap.

-use a barrier cream. My barrier of choice was coconut oil because I found it so soothing and I used it day and night on my vagina for a few months. If you’re wearing underwear, you might want to put on a liner so it doesn’t stain your undies. My doctor said you could also use petroleum jelly. I ended up switching to rose hip oil when I healed a bit more. It is much thinner and doesn’t create much of a barrier, but it was thinner than coconut oil, which was giving me some breakouts on my bikini line so I switched. A barrier cream is really important because it helps limit friction.

-No thongs. They increase contact against your vagina because they are directly against it and usually tight. During healing from vaginal dermatitis you want as little contact as possible.

-I only wore 100% cotton underwear that was a size bigger than my usual so that it was baggy. This is because cotton is a very breathable material. I never wore any kind of nylon or polyester or any kind of pantyhose. Keep it as breathable as possible.

-I wore breathable materials in pants that were loose and baggy when I was in the worst of this. When this was at its peak and pain and irritation, I literally would only wear cotton or linen pants that were very baggy. Skirts are LIFE SAVER. I would sometimes get away with a really big jeans if it wasn’t near my crotch. Slowly weaned off of this as he the key to healing for me was lessening any kind of friction or rubbing against my vagina. This sucked because it was so inconvenient to dress, but it was worth it in the end.

-I started taking a probiotic supplement and I cannot say if this actually healed the area or not. But it is good to look into what bacteria are on your vagina., like the kind, and I purchased probiotics that included those strains to improve vaginal health overall.

-i patted my vagina and never rubbed it. When I was in the worst of it, I would literally rinse my pee with water first using a cup and just pouring it on. This was very cool and relieving. Some people also said they bought organic bleach free toilet paper but I could not afford this so I just use my regular toilet paper to dry.

-keep the area as dry as you can

-go commando as much as you can. When I was at home, I would just not wear underwear and I wouldn’t wear underwear to sleep. If you have to try really baggy, cotton pyjama shorts or undies

Hope this helps!