I have chronic BV; my story so far.

I can't even tell you how long exactly that I've suffered from BV, it feels like forever, but I'd think maybe the last 4+ years on and off... mostly on. I say suffered because it has been the dark cloud that hangs over my head and never goes away. My big secret i can't tell anyone. It's all I think about, every minute of every day. Do I smell? Can others smell me? Why aren't I normal? Why is this happening to me? Why does nothing work? Why don't the doctors care or even know what the main problem is? I change my underwear 2-3 times a day, I bring spare pairs of undies with me most places just in case I'm having a bad day with it and I'm not home. I have even thrown away every pair of undies I own more times then i can count. Then, there's the rare occasion where I actually have sex with my partner... I can't even enjoy it because all I'm thinking about is the smell or the discharge. He gets up and immediately washes himself and it just f*****g hurts me that I am not normal... that we can't have a normal sex life. 

i constantly googled looking for answers and everything online said that I was normal... But there was nothing normal about this. No one else had it. I felt so alone and thought I had like a disease or this is how my life was going to be forever. You can't just tell your friends about this. Like, it's so disgusting and embarrassing, 'hey guys my vag stinks real bad all the time and I want to die'... yeah, no thanks. My partner is so lovely about this whole thing. A few months after we had started dating he looked at me and said 'sometimes there is a smell' I f*****g died inside. I wanted to break up with him right then and run into a hole forever... i was so ashamed and scared. since then we have occasionally spoken about it but I'm so embarrassed that I'm not sure he knows the full extent of it. He says that he's not going anywhere and is even willing to pay my doctors bills and do whatever he needs to help me. So amazing, but you still shouldn't have to deal with this s**t. I feel gross 24/7 and always think he's going to leave me because of it. Not being able to let your partner touch you when you want to, never feeling confident or sexy... it has taken a toll on our relationship and if he was any less of a man he'd be gone by now. Or he's just dumb, either way I love him. 

 The first time I got the balls to go to the doctor, I told her that I "smelled badly". She laughed in my face and said vaginas are smelly and discharge is normal, I went home and cried my eyes out because I just didn't understand. Is this actually what happens to everyone? Does everyone feel this way?! Not long after I went back to the doctor and burst into tears, said something is really really wrong with me. Again, she thought I was being silly and did a swab just to make me happy. A few days later I received a call from the doc apologising and saying I had Bacterial Vaginosis... WHAT THE F**K IS THAT. I'd never heard of this before, my brain nearly broke thinking about it and so i went to town on google. Most women have it? It's a normal thing?? It's common??? In all my years being a woman on this earth, no one had ever mentioned this s**t. What the actual f**k! i was so relieved that I wasn't alone! FINALLY AN ANSWER! I'm normal!!!! Other women on the internet had this issue! I was a whole new woman.. for a while. The doctor assured me it was a quick fix with some medicine. Now I'm pretty against antibiotics and modern medicines, and prefer the holistic version of things but I was absolutely desperate and relieved! She prescribed flagyl and my BV went away!!!!!!!! And then without skipping a beat, it was just back. This went on for ages. My heart was instantly broken and the black cloud was back, worse then ever. I began to research, write down information from different blog posts, peoples experiences and any holistic info I could find. I started doing everything I could.. making apple cider vinegar concoctions every day, eating yoghurt, acidophilus, oregano oil, garlic, pretty much everything you can find online! (Besides douching, I personally am just not okay with that) i spent every penny on vitamins and became obsessed. My BV began to subside.. not fully but it was nowhere near as bad as it was before. And then guess what. It came back yet again full force. The smell wasn't as bad but it was affecting my partner more. If he didn't wash immediately after sex his penis would become sore and red. What. The. Actual. F**k. Kill me.  I wanted to go to the doctor again. Someone had to know about this! It couldn't be just me! I went to a new doctor. I picked a woman but she happened to be sick that day so I had a male doc. I was so terrified but I was ready to fix this, so i went in with ALL of my findings. As i began to tell the doctor he looked sort of shocked. Shortly into the chat, I realised that I knew more then him about BV. He even told me that. He had nothing new to tell me, same ol 'normal woman thing' type of bulls**t. But he said he was going to call his friend and ask about it. He prescribed me another round of flagyl at double the normal dosage to see if that would work. (He also laughed at all my remedies and said that they were A bit silly because they don't work...idiot) The medicine seemed to work okay and I had relief for a while. The doctor asked me to come back in and see him, that he had spoken with his friend and had some news. Holy s**t! SOMETHING!!!!!!!! We sat down and he started telling me that his friend didn't know much about BV, that no one knows much about it. He told me i may be allergic to my boyfriend and we should try wearing condoms. ? That was it. That's all he had to tell me... WTF. this made no sense to me. I had it before my partner, and we spent 4 months apart (traveling) and it was the worst it's ever been then. Why is this happening to me. It's ruining my f*****g life. And no one knows why. 

I've been able to manage it okay the past few months but last week I wore a certain pair of undies and now it's bad again... 

I've always had this weird feeling that maybe I couldnt have kids. I had a miscarriage when I was in my early 20's but the thought was still always in my mind. And for some reason yesterday i was thinking about this and got back on the google machine. Bad idea. Women were saying that long term BV had caused them to become infertile. It scars and damages your tubes. The past couple of years I've had HORRIBLE period cramps so that would make sense.. next minute I'm crying because now I think I'm ruined and i can't procreate. All I've ever wanted is to be a mum. Have a big family and live the dream... all these thoughts came into my head and I freaked the f**k out. I realised I couldn't go on like this anymore. I'm in a constant depression and I'm scared. I just want to be normal. 

I remembered I knew a naturopath (apparently she's f*****g amazing)! I'm pretty broke at the moment but i thought f**k it, I don't need to pay for groceries this fortnight, I need this. So I'm seeing her today at 4:30pm and I'm f*****g terrified. What if she can't help? What if she tells me that I'm broken? What if I have to be like this forever? I just want one tiny bit of answer. I am going to document everything now that I learn. If she tells me I have to eat carrots for 6 months and it'll be gone, I'll eat them for 12. I'm ready to get my life and my back. And to buy heaps of new nice undies. I just wanted to share my story somewhere because I've never been able to before and I hope I can help someone. 

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