BURNING CROTCH - HELP!

HELLO,

I HAVE GENITAL WARTS AND STARTED USING ALDARA CREAM (ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO OR SO NOW). I'VE HAD THE WARTS 3 MONTHS, BUT DID NOTHING TO GET RID OF THEM BECAUSE I WAS BREAST FEEDING.

OK SO MY QUESTION IS TWO FOLD...

1 - MY CROTCH STARTED BURNING BEFORE THE ALDARA CREAM SO I MUST HAVE SOME KIND OF INFECTION UNRELATED TO THE WARTS. IS IT OKAY TO USE A  MED LIKE MONISTAT WHILE USING ALDARA? THE BURNING IS KILLING ME. ALL RED DOWN THERE INSIDE AND OUT AND IS VERY PAINFUL. I CALLED MY OBGYN AND THEY SAID TO TRY MONISTAT FIRST BEFORE COMING IN. I KNOW THEY ARE SUPER BUSY IN THE OFFICE, BUT AM I MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE IN TRYING MONISTAT FIRST?

2 - I DON'T SEE MUCH IMPROVEMENT YET FROM THE ALDARA CREAM. I KNOW IT CAN TAKE A LONG TIME. SHOULD I TRY TO GET THESE WARTS BURNED OFF ALREADY BY THE DOC? THEY ARE IN A SENSITIVE AREA - THE CLITORIS... MY HUSBAND HAS BEEN PATIENT BUT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A NORMAL SEX LIFE AGAIN! BUT ABOVE ALL ELSE I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING TO PREVENT HIM FROM GETTING WARTS.

THANKS FOR YOU THOUGHTS!!!

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I try not to make specific diagnoses online; and in any case, you don't provide enough information for any certainty at all.  For example, "crotch" means different things to different people; most people use it to mean the groin, the area where the thigh meets the leg, or between the labia and leg.  But if you mean the genital area itself (labia, vaginal area), the most common cause of burning is yeast infection--so your doc's suggestion to try one of the over-the-counter yeast creams (Monistat or others) may be reasonable.

All treatments for warts work about 60% of the time; imiquimod (Aldara) is no better (but also no worse) than other treatments.  When imiquimod works, it typically takes at least several treatments over 2 weeks or more.  But if you go that long without improvement, re-check with your provider.

If you have warts, it is much too late to protect your husband from HPV infection; you can be 100% confident your husband already is infected with the same HPV strain, since you would have been exposing each other for at least several weeks before the warts appeared.  At this point, having sex or not is simply a matter of comfort (even if you don't have yeast, imiquimod itself can be pretty irritating); transmission to your husband isn't an issue.

Best wishes and happy Thanksgiving--  HHH, MD

[monkeyflower]

Don't know about the rest, but I think you can have sex with your partner now; whether he has warts or not, I'm sure he's infected as well. I don't know whether the cream has anything to do with it, but if it's just fear of transmission that's keeping you from having sex with your partner, then I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[chelseadog13]

i appreciate the responses.

i realize my husband is already infected with HPV. My concern is that he gets a wart outbreak. isn't it true that while the warts are present the chances of your partner having an outbreak are much greater?

Not to mention my vagina is burning and itching big time. i held off on using monistat because of the aldara cream. but since aldara seems to be irritating the area sooo much, i've temporarily stopped. i know creams can irritate, but this is pretty brutal.