I have an embarassing question, don't judge. I'd prefer women to answer.

[starbuckslover223]

Hello, I am thirteen years old. I am addressing a vaginal odor issue I have dealt with since about seven or eight. I'm quite sensitive about the subject so don't judge me, please. So, when I was younger, I was never taught how to take a bath, I just did it myself. My mom gave me the soap and a washcloth and basically told me "here's the soap and the washcloth, use it" and I washed myself without instruction.

I had started using Olay bar soap on a washcloth to clean myself (which has a boatload of perfumes) and I never found out that soap wasn't supposed to be put there and that the "vagina is a self-cleaning oven" until I was 10 years old. I stopped using soap immediately after I found this information, however, I have had an oniony smelling vagina since then. I am not sexually active nor have I ever had sex, whatsoever.

The smell is not coming from my vagina or the vaginal opening itself (the genital canal to the inside of a woman's body), it is coming from the skin of the vulva and the skin behind and around the labia minora. I feel like my pH balance is completely unbalanced from using soap and it stripped my vagina of its good bacteria because it's also dry. I have done everything from spending lots of time cleaning things up down there but nothing seems to work.

Bathing in Epsom salt, bathing in apple cider vinegar and baking soda, etc. I even did an experiment by wiping myself very good with my special washcloth (it's soft, non-abrasive and designed for the vulva) both in the bathtub and outside the bathtub, and there was no smell for about ten seconds and then the smell came back. I know for sure that it's not my natural odor because I never smelled like onions.

As a matter of a fact, my vulva had no offensive or overbearing smell before I started using soap there. I'd just smell a little sweaty when I'd work out or run track but nothing other than that. I've tried going vegan, eating nothing but fruits and vegetables, pineapple, oranges apples, etc. None of that worked. I used to be embarrassed to go to the doctor but now I'm not really embarrassed to go to the gynecologist because I'll do anything to get rid of it-- but it's the whole fact of I know what doctors do.

What's going to happen is: I'm going to go to the gynecologist to have someone else in my grill, then they are going to tell me it's just my natural smell, give me a bunch of medicine that the insurance is going to have to take care of that might make my situation even worse than an oniony smelling vulva. I don't really think that anyone on here is going to do that much better than the doctors, but some people on here might have personal experiences similar to mine and might be able to tell me something the doctors can't.

Vulva odor is not really studied in medicine. Nobody cares about that. But it's still embarrassing and confidence stripping. Is there anyone that might be able to give me some advice? Maybe suggest something other to do for this hopeless situation? Thank you for anyone that answers.

[AnnieBrooke]

The skin at the inside top of the thighs (right where the fold mark is where the leg meets the torso) seems to be especially laden with sweat glands that pass on the direct smell of some foods a person has recently been eating. If I ever wanted to know what I had for dinner two nights ago, I should just check out my inside leg top's sweat. Especially onions seems to come through this way. This never happened to me before puberty -- something about the hormones coming on seemed to trigger the mechanism. I've read that it could be biological in the sense that early in humanity's development, knowing from how someone smells whether they have had good stuff to eat was somehow advantageous. The book I am quoting suggested this is why humans, who lost most of their body hair, retained it under the arms and in the pubic area -- it helped trap the smell of the food the person ate. Maybe in a pre-verbal state, it did help us to know who had the good sources of food, and the ones who did had more babies, etc.

Anyway, when you were changing your diet, did you remove all onions and powdered onion flavoring from your diet? No BBQ potato chips or Funyons? (lol) That would be the first thing I would try.  Onion is in a lot of stuff, including things you wouldn't expect, like salad dressings.

I doubt a doc would prescribe meds for you if he thought it was just a normal aspect of being human, so don't worry about that, and do get checked. You always want to rule out something unusual.

I also suggest you might try rubbing onto your upper legs (not the tender vaginal skin, especially the moist part) some old-fashioned Listerine, the kind that is made of menthol and eucalyptus and smells pretty bitter. It's made to be a mouthwash, obviously, but those natural ingredients are actually a good skin cleaner for other purposes. Listerine (again, the original stinky kind) on a cotton ball actually removed the horrible itching when I got shingles once, and nothing else would touch it. It's also great when you have an itchy mosquito bite that just won't stop being red and puffy.

If this is coming from your diet (and again, think about foods that you wouldn't necessarily suspect -- onion is put into a lot of things to make them more generally flavorful) you might be able to calm things down if you daub with Listerine on your skin where the smell is coming out. You say this is not coming from the inside of your vagina, I think it's coming from your pores on the outer skin nearby.

Good luck!

[specialmom]

I'm sorry this is happening to you.  I'm surprised that the apple cider vinegar bath didn't work for you!  You could also try a handful of bacterial soap and clean in the folds, outside the area of your vagina (not in).  I've read this helps.  But is there any way you can talk to your mom about it?  This is your best source of info.  OR, when you go for your annual well check doctor's appointment, ask to sit with the doctor alone and ask about it then.