I’m going to be honest with you: this post is happening because no one responded to my query on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/vanessapamela/status/1214393664308428801
As an extremely anxious person who constantly thinks I might have a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis (spoiler: I almost never actually have a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis, my gynecologist is usually highly confused why I’ve brought my healthy vagina in to see her) imagine my joy, surprise, alarm, and dismay when I learned that there are strips that you can use to test your vaginal pH in your very own home?!?! Joy, that such a product exists, surprise, that no one ever told my anxious ass about them, alarm, that I have wasted so much money on co-pays at the gynecologist when I could have been dealing with my mostly-hypochondriac issues at home, dismay, that the online reviews for this product are so mixed. It was a roller coaster of emotion, I’ll tell you what.
Incase you’re not quite as intimately familiar as I am with the literature surrounding yeast and BV on the internet, one of the ways you can tell if you have BV (rather than a yeast infection) is if the pH in your vagina is off. This isn’t fool proof, obviously, and everything you read will tell you if you’re not certain what’s going on you should go to your doctor, but, who has the time or money to go visit the doctor every time you’re just a tiny bit anxious that something might be off with your vagina?!?!?! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could, at the very least, check your pH so you could then make an informed decision about what to probably panic about? (Is this not in fact how everyone lives?)
You might be expecting me to review different brands of vaginal pH strips now, or to share with you my findings about which one is best, but nope, I won’t be doing any of that because I personally have never tried these babies. I want to hear from people who have! Were they accurate? Did you like them? Did knowing the pH of your vagina help calm your anxieties and moisturize your skin and condition your hair and revive your crops and save your whole goddamn life? Just wondering.
PS: Also open to discussing home cures for yeast infections and BV! We’ve discussed that quite a bit over the years here at Autostraddle, but it’s 2020 – I’m down for some updated info.
