This is a ridiculously long story, so the short version is that I have been living with BV for about a year, tried antibiotics, vitamins, douching with peroxide and I just recently switched to a mixture of peroxide/apple cider vinegar/water, and am currently awaiting results. I am also going to pick up some Vitamin D pills asap.


SO, my horribly horrifically horrible story. I am 24 years old and had never gotten a UTI before age 21, and I used to get yeast infections occasionally when I was a baby, but none after puberty. I live in NYC and in October of 2012, during the week of hurricane Sandy, I got a urinary tract infection which turned into a yeast infection (all while having no power for a full week, yes my life is horribly unlucky; more to come). I jumped on the computer as soon as possible and researched if this was a common phenomenon, and many women have reported this happening, but there is no medical evidence to support this. I even asked my gynecologist months later if she had ever heard of getting a YI from a UTI WITHOUT the use of antibiotics and she just looked completely confused. The symptoms cleared up in about 2 weeks and over the next 4 months I was getting reoccurring urinary tract infections which I was treating at home with cranberry products and what-not. I would say I got about 7 UTIs from October 2012 - April 2013, and about 3 of those times they turned into yeast infections without me using antibiotics. Around January I decided to see a doctor and he told me I did in fact have a urinary tract infection and prescribed me antibiotics that would not cause a yeast infection. Prefect, right? Wrong. I was back in that doctors office not even a month later, and the same thing. Prescribed antibiotics, UTI went away and came back again. I went back to the doctor a third time and third times the charm right? Not for me it isn't. For me, fourth times the charm and my UTIs went away for a few months around April. Now, good ole May comes around I am having sex with my boy friend, randomly, and my vagina starts buuurrnnniinggg. So we stopped and then the next day I got a yeast infection. I looked up if this was common for sex to hurt if you unknowingly had a yeast infection and it is. So I used some over the counter stuff and it went away. Fantastic!! Wrong again. June, nothing, I am thinking, "wow! Maybe I am cured, finally."... but I must have forgotten to knock on wood. Here is July and whaddya know? A UTI, BAM out of nowhere, while I am at work. Then, oh no, it turns into a yeast infection almost immediately WHILE AT WORK! I worked for 10 hours then, customer service, gun-to-the-head type of work. I purchased some more over-the-counter stuff from the pharmacy and it went away in about a week. By now I had probably spent over $500 on medical s***. Now, August. August is a good month right? Wrong. I got a new boyfriend at the end of July, and we started having sex with no condom which I had never done before. Everything was peachy for about three weeks and then I got a weird yeast infection. It was weird because it would come and go, very unlike a traditional YI. It went away in a week and the next week me and my boyfriend had sex and it came back. I figured maybe we were giving it back and forth to each other. So we stopped having sex for a few weeks and then the first week of September, boned again, with a condom this time. Now the end of the week roles around and I am starting to feel off and I am getting worried because my brothers wedding is the next week, the 13th. So I got some Monistat STAT, thinking I would nip it in the bud. It didn't do s***. Then, finally, I wake up on the day of my brother’s wedding to the worst itching/burning I had ever felt up until that point. I was sitting in a bathtub of apple cider vinegar and water, crying my eyes out, banging the wall, screaming, "WHY?! WHY ME?!" With only a few hours until the wedding I feverishly researched quick remedies for vaginal itching and burning and I came across apple cider vinegar douching. Now, I had always been taught that douching is terrible for you, but I would have poured salt into my puss if it would ease the itching just for the day. So, I douched with the vinegar and water and voilà! I felt way better, and it last through the day and halfway into the next day, then the itching returned. I don't even remember what I did to get rid of it, but I know it eventually went away. As soon as I could I made a gyno appointment because there had to be something seriously wrong with me, and it couldn't come at better time because I was a few weeks away from losing my health insurance. Mid-Septemeber I see the gyno and I tell them everything, and they do all these tests and say they will call me in about 10 days. About a week later, I am home, at night and I get a call from them and they tell me that I have HPV, Chlamydia, an intestinal infection and BV. WHAT?? I immediately called my boyfriend and screamed my f****** head off at him, and naturally broke up with him. The one person I ever had unsafe sex with turned out to be unsafe, surprise, surprise. I learned the hard way. So the doc prescribed me antibiotics for everything (except the HPV which goes away on its own). Fast forward to the beginning of October and I still have the BV. From then until now I have been douching with hydrogen peroxide, 2 times a day and this s*** is STILL HERE! I am off sex, ridiculously depressed, angry and just at the end of my rope. I quit my job, am doing poorly in school and I haven't left my house in about a month, other than to go to school about 5 times, I am horny and most of all fed the f*** up. When I was younger I was so dirty. I wouldn't shower for DAYS and NNEEVVEEERR had a problem with my vag. And now that I am older and clean, I have this s*** storm to deal with. On top of everything, I found out that my health care was cut sooner than I was told and I received a nice $3000 bill in the mail from my gyno. What an amazing life I have. Now, I have switched to apple cider vinegar/peroxide/water douching and it doesn't look like I am having much change, but I am hopeful. I seriously hope at least one person gets something from this story. I am 24 years old, this isn't what I expected my life to look like when I imagined it as a young girl. My life is supposed to be like Sex and the City, not The Hills Have Eyes.

Please share your stories because I would love to read them and give me an iota of hope.

Um. Stop with the douching. I am not sure you'll get the normal flora back at this point, but what you're doing to your vagina canal and probably the pain you're going through is probably resultant from your douching. I can't even imagine.

Maybe try to find a good over the counter monostat or conestin or something. Try to even things out under there.

Good luck.

Yes, stop with the douching ! It solves NOTHING and only inhibits bacterial growth within because you have LOST your natural immunity.

I've tried Monistat over and over. It will NOT cure the BV, which is the reoccurring factor here and as I mentioned, it also wasn't cured by the antibiotics prescribed. I've never douched before in my life prior to the last few months because after many days of research, most women have said that they cured their BV by douching with hydrogen peroxide.

The problem with douching, especially with peroxide, is that it gets rid of ALL the bacteria there. Afterwards you have a clean slate for ANYTHING to come back in. The problem is that the normal bacteria in there now have to compete with the other bacteria that was causing BV. The fact that they were out competing the normal flora in the first place just means that you will get it back worse then ever. Adding whatever to the douche could make it worse because of what bacteria might be there in the first place.

I would get them to do a culture of your flora right now. Might have been the wrong antibiotic, might have a AB resistant strain.

Vinegar and peroxide are not remotely the same!
And Monistat - did you try the 7 day one?
Yes, yeast goes back and forth between men and women. Men usually don't have symptoms.
Yes, antibiotics do bring on yeast in many women.
I have had numerous yeast infections in all the moister, hidden places of my body since having IV antibiotics, although it was not believed that to be related (I KNOW it was).

I would love to get them to do a culture, but as I mentioned, I have no health insurance and I actually owe my gyno $3000.

And yes, I tried Monistat 1, 3 & 7 more than once.

Monistat is for yeast, which is a fungus. It won't do anything for BV (Bacterial Vagniosis), which is a bacteria. BV is commonly passed back and forth between partners. When you have BV and are being treated with antibiotics, your partner should be treated with the same antibiotics.