While it’s also important to consider your intestines when treating vaginal yeast infections, vaginal treatments can reduce symptoms while you attend to your gut flora.
Some essential oils that work well for calming yeast infections include:
- German chamomile
- Geranium
- Lavender
- Lemongrass
- Myrrh
- Petit grain
- Tea tree
- Thyme
Sitz bath for minor symptom relief
Dose: 2-3 drops of essential oil in a large bowl of warm water, used twice daily until symptoms resolve. A sitz bath is a ‘bath’ where your bottom and vagina are sitting in the water and nothing else, though you can have a regular bath – just make sure to add more essential oils to account for the new ratio.
Itching or soreness yoghurt and oil douche
Dose: Make a douche using 100ml of fresh live probiotic (unflavoured) yoghurt or milk kefir, plus 5 drops each of German chamomile, lavender and tea tree oil. Apply the mixed liquid using a syringe cannister, turkey baster, or silicone douche. You can dilute the yoghurt with warm water until it is thinner, if you prefer. This way it will come out of your vagina faster than the yoghurt may. Do the douche twice daily. Make sure the yoghurt is completely plain, has live probiotics in it, and no added sugar, flavours, or preservatives.
Australian tea tree oil douche
Add 1 teaspoon of tea tree oil to warm water (if you can get water-soluble tea tree, do so). Using a syringe cannister or douche, apply into the vagina and around the vulva.
Treating your gut while you treat your vagina infection
It’s important to understand that a yeast infection in your vagina is almost always a sign of a yeast bloom in the gut. This needs addressing. While you are treating your yeast infection, get rid of all white carbs (white bread, pasta, rice, potato) from your diet, and all sugary drinks and foods. They feed the yeast. You’ll be surprised that even just removing these foods – without any douching necessary – will get rid of many yeast infections by itself.
Add to that fermented foods and probiotics, and your yeast infection will resolve by itself, and within a day. A bloom relies on a food source, so if you remove the food source, the bloom disappears. Without the bloom in your gut, your vagina doesn’t have any yeast problems most of the time – one thing leads to the other.