I first got BV about 9 months ago. I'm not sure what triggered it...After that I've gotten BV again 3 or 4 times. I've tried all the natural remedies (coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, tea tree oil none worked). I took probiotics orally which kept it away for a couple months but as soon as I stopped it was back within a couple days! I've never tried any of the antibiotics.
I've never had sexual intercourse so I determined that some kind of nutritional deficiency was triggering my BV. I haven't had BV in a couple months now, and I will update in the comments!
Here's what I did:
I'm dark skinned, and it's winter here so I started taking 1000IU vitamin D daily. I read a bit about vitamin D curing BV on here, but I think it's only effective if you are deficient! It really helped - I took it for a few days and the BV disappeared.
I realised the probiotics I was taking are aimed for digestive support like most in the market. The strains in the probiotics matter!!! Make sure your probiotic has rhamnosus and reuteri in it. I took two capsules of these with 2.5billion of each strain in it.
I also started drinking lots of water, eating healthier (cutting out gluten, dairy, added sugar), and exercising regularly.
Other little things that I always do:
- use unscented laundry detergent
- wash your underwear at the highest temperature you can to kill any bacteria
- only wear cotton underwear (and change your underwear straight after you exercise)
- don't wear any underwear at night (just wrap a towel around you)
- have a shower every morning and night and wash your inner and outer labia with water only
- use ORGANIC cotton pads for your period (I've just bought a menstrual cup to try too)
BV ruined me. I stayed at home a lot to avoid people smelling me (my only symptom was the thin grey/pale yellow fishy smelling discharge). I missed so much university and failed my first medical school exam. I know how it feels, and I want to help any ladies out there suffering from the same thing. Doctors don't even know how to treat recurrent BV so we need to stick around for each other
Feel free to ask me anything.