Yeast Infection – Prevention

Transcript

So I recommend for my patients to make sure that they’re using cotton underwear, that if it’s getting wet or they’ve been sweating or swimming, that they change immediately, I recommend to people who are really concerned or have recurrent infections to maybe walk around the house with, say a skirt on with no underwear underneath, as much as they can, and definitely don’t wear any panties to bed so that the air can get in that vaginal area and just maintain the balance and health of those mucous membranes. And in terms of washing, it’s always best to use gentle soap and water or just water because sometimes the chemicals or the contaminants that we put in the area with, for example, harsh soaps, or even feminine sprays or feminine deodorants, people will put all kinds of things in their vaginal area. And probably those things contribute more to infection than not using those things. So just water or just gentle soap is all that’s needed to clean the vaginal area and nothing inside the vagina when you’re cleaning. So when you’re cleaning, you’re just cleaning the external skin. The vagina remarkably knows how to look after itself. So we don’t put douches in there. We don’t put rinses in there. We don’t put anything in there that would change the natural, healthy environment of the vagina, if we want our vagina to do what it does best, which is to maintain that healthy environment.