Vaginal Yeast Infection

I have to say, I have never ever had a yeast infection. However that being said I had 2 friends that always got them. I swear it was like there monthly period. I don’t know if it has to do with food, because one girl ate like a teenage boy, and the other one on the 200 calorie a day diet. So two different types of “diets”, and still got yeast.

Are you on birth control? That’s always a huge trigger for yeast infections. Sounds like you probably already know that, but thought I’d throw it out there just in case.

Yeast infections and headaches sounds like my symptoms when I was taking progesterone, so maybe your progesterone production is increasing? I think progesterone is supposed to increase when your thyroid function increases- so if re-feeding is healing any thyroid problems or metabolic problems, the progesterone could be a possibility. I’m not exactly sure, because I was always told estrogen caused YIs, but after using progesterone myself, I think any hormonal imbalance can throw things off.

For an optimistic view, perhaps your body is just shifting, and this is an uncomfortable, temporary period where your body is doing some healing from all the re-feeding, especially if you’ve had other positive health benefits from re-feeding. I think I remember a comment Matt made somewhere on the blog indicating that you could have some yeast flare ups while re-feeding, but once your temps are up or stable, then the yeast can’t live in that healthy, 98.6 environment. Hopefully Matt will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think he said something to that effect.

@Fab ‘s question. The only way to know for sure is a culture. Are you in the US? If so, Planned Parenthood will do it on a sliding-scale fee, i.e., cheap if you don’t have insurance.

Following on what Hannah said, as far as other things it could be:
If it’s just irritated and itchy, could be just dry. Dryness and hypersensitivity can go along with low metabolism in my experience. Even if you can lube up when aroused, it can be dry the rest of the time. Frequent masturbation can help! :)

Second, could be a skin irritation from an irritating laundry soap or something like that. Third, you can also have a bacterial infection; years ago, I once got a bad bacterial infection from using a condom with spermicide on it, my theory is it killed off the good bacteria and let the bad ones take over, while also irritating the tissues and making them vulnerable. The active ingredient in spermicides is detergent, as in Tide. Bad news.

Fourth, more generally, I’ve found that cheap lubes like Astroglide can both irritate and throw of the balance in there, among other things they contain glycerine and parabens, causing either “mere” irritation or, worse, also creating a yeast-and-bad-bacteria-friendly environment. I’ve found that the Sliquid brand (plain water- or silicone-based, not the weird flavored ones) to be non-irritating.

On the low-metabolism cause, here’s some explicit but maybe useful personal experience: When my metabolism was low last year/early this year, my vulva was dry, irritated and sometimes itchy during the 2nd half of the cycle. The usual discharge was thicker and wouldn’t flow out, it kind of got stuck in the folds and caused irritation. Other than red & itchy, there weren’t other telltale yeast symptoms such as the so-called “cottage cheese like discharge” or yeasty smells. I got it checked out TWICE at dr & Planned Parenthood, and it was NOT yeast or bacteria, just redness and irritation. The nurse practitioner I saw gave me some cortisone ointment, which did help but you don’t want to get “addicted” to that stuff or overuse it, because supposedly it can cause the skin to become thinner and thus more vulnerable over time. This went on for 10 months, so glad I was stingy with the cortisone! What worked symptomatically was, yeah, getting off, plus a little of that Sliquid lube … tried coconut oil but it was irritating for me.

At the time, I didn’t know much about metabolism etc. It’s in retrospect that I can make the connection. What worked: I don’t mean for this to sound like a testimonial, but raising my temps w/ food really fixed the dryness. As of 2 months ago, I’ve been great, lubing like a 22 year old (I’m 37). Yeah, I’m 30 pounds heavier than I was at 22, but a lot of that is T&A! ;)

Unless you are 100% sure it’s yeast, I DON’T recommend the over-the-counter anti-fungal medications (tho yogurt and garlic probably are harmless for most). Those can be super-irritating, especially if the problem is just dryness or irritation in the first place … speaking from experience, ladies.

Sorry so long … although not as sexually experienced as this post implies, I have been around the block and it would be neat if it were useful to someone out there.

Aloe can be helpful for irritation, too, and is supposedly an effective lubricant as well