A Message To All Women

As children we're all taught that it's important to have good hygiene. Nobody wants to be followed around by the bad hygiene monster or be bullied in school for being the stinky kid. But what happens when all those years of being told to stay clean take a turn for the worse?

Well, here's my personal story on how everything I was taught on feminine hygiene, or lack of knowledge on the subject and social influence, almost ruined my life.

Like most young girls I was determined to fit in (whatever the hell that means). I tried to stick to the latest fashions, always wear makeup, and most important of all: always smell good.

I had a battalion of soaps, shower gels and perfumes at my disposal, showered every day, and yet something just wasn't right.

Half the time during my teenage years my little lady garden was on fire. My mum would take me to the doctors, my eyes streaming because I was in so much pain I could barely sit still or get off the toilet. They'd throw creams and tablets at me like they were going out of fashion.

At the age of 23, the year I first met my amazing husband, I suffered with 12 UTIs (urinary tract infections) and 9 different occasions of thrush infections, sometimes both occurring at once. Creams weren't helping. Keeping clean wasn't helping. Long courses of antibiotics weren't helping.

Enough was enough.

I sat in my doctor's office, crying my eyes out because my then boyfriend refused to be intimate with me and we'd even talked about splitting up because I refused to force him to stay with 'damaged goods', and I demanded that they run some kind of test to help me figure out what the hell was wrong with me.

In the end they finally offered for me to have some swab work done. It was that appointment that would change my life forever.

I still remember it clearly to this day. The terror at the thought of having some nurse touching my lady bits to get a good swabbing done because I couldn't even touch myself when going to the toilet.

So there I was, spread out on her examination table, and one simple question from that lovely, amazing nurse was all it took to fix my problem forever!

What question was that? I hear you ask. The question was: "What do you use to wash down there?"

My answer: "Anything with 'Fem' in the title or any other such product advertised to be kind to skin and gentle on the feminine area."

The woman who could have been no older than her late thirties looked at me, sighed and shook her head. "Stop immediately. Those things are a waste of money and they do more harm than good."

I looked at her like she'd grown a second head. What the hell was I supposed to use if I couldn't use the one thing that was supposed to be good for my lady garden?

And here came the holy grail that she passed down to me in a simple seed of wisdom. The answer was: clean warm water. Again, I looked at her like she was not of this planet. How was I supposed to stop from smelling with just warm water?

She told me that the genitalia, both male and female, are self-cleaning and introducing anything else into the mix severely affects their natural PH balance. They don't need anything else. Just let them do their job.

I couldn't do that, could I?

She said, don't do it for me, do it for yourself. Give it one week of no soap, shower gel or even cream and I promise you'll see the difference.

And so I left that appointment, shaken to my core, and I laughed with my boyfriend about what she'd told me. Then the next morning in the shower, I decided, what more harm could it do? I was already in absolute agony and awaiting test results anyway.

The next day, I was still red raw and desperate for some relief but I'd been like that for months, what harm could another couple of days do?

A week later, my symptoms were gone! Let me tell you, I have never thrown so many soap and shower bottles in the bin so fast.

To this day, four years later, I have never brought a single bottle labelled feminine hygiene and not a single soap sud has taken a trip between my legs. And the best part? In those four years, I have only suffered one episode of thrush and a UTI due to antibiotics given to me for a tooth extraction! Antibiotics, those very things they were throwing at me for my recurring problems!

And so I come to the moral of my story and my desperate message to you: please, please stop buying into all those harmful products. Let mother nature do her job!

P.s if you're worried about the smell. My lady garden has never smelled fresher!

Disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional and not all problems can be fixed so easily. It's always best to get the advice of a healthcare professional if you think something is wrong.