Vaginal Smell

Before I go into my story about how I beat Bacterial Vaginosis and this very inconvenient and uncomfortable thing called vaginal odour, I thought it would be good to go over what BV is and why vaginal fishy smell even comes about in the first place.

Did you know that Bacterial Vaginosis is the most common vaginal infection in child bearing women? It may surprise you to know that it is most common in pregnant women. As a matter of fact, it is really about an imbalance of bacteria, where the “bad” bacteria outnumbers the “good bacteria” (I’ll bet you didn’t know that you had “good” bacteria in your body that you actually need. That’s why antibiotics are tough on the body. They not only go after the bad bacteria but they also kill the good ones! Research shows that 70% of the women who take the antibiotic regimen will have repeated attacks of the infection).

Believe it or not, it is not really known what causes this bacterial imbalance. It is known, however, that some activities, like douching and having multiple sex partners or a new sex partner puts women at risk of getting this infection. Now, having said that, it appears primarily in women who have gone through pregancy…but women who have never had sexual relations can also get it. So, bottom line is that it’s not completely clear why women get this thing. The CDC tells us that BV can increase a woman’s risk of HIV infection and other STD’s, like Herpes Simplex Virus, chlamydia, and gonorrhea.

Symptoms include a strong and unpleasant vaginal odour (fishy smell), itching around the outside of the vagina, white or gray discharge, and possibly burning during urination. Not very comfortable, as you can imagine.

Some home remedies include not washing your vagina more than 2-3 times a day and using only non-perfumed soap, no douching, have protected sex and using condoms until you are completely free of BV, wear light underwear only made of cotton material, and placing a wrapped ice pack or cold facecloth on the vagina. These remedies usually only provide a temporary relief of the symptoms of BV. Something different has to be done to permanently get rid of the vaginal fishy smell, itching, and discharge. But, I’ll get into that in my next post.