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I know we are all secretly relieved that all of our non-urgent medical visits have been indefinitely postponed. I know you did a little dance when your dentist called to inform you that, sadly, your teeth cleaning for April would have to be canceled due to COVID-19. It’s not like anybody looks forward to any of it. Having someone scrape away at your teeth. Or standing naked on a scale for a nurse at the doctor’s office. Or getting lectured about how much alcohol you drink each week or how much red meat you consume. We all did a little “Woohoo!” when we discovered that we wouldn’t need to go in for routine checkups for now.
Don’t get too excited, though. If you don’t take good enough care of yourself in the interim, then when you do finally go in for that next physical or cleaning, you could get some bad news. Just because you don’t need to report your habits to a doctor for some time doesn’t mean that you get to become lax about your health habits. You’ll have to pay the price, one way or another, and the price could be bigger if you don’t take care of yourself during this time.
This is especially true for your vagina. Your gynecologist may have canceled your pap smear or Well Woman’s Exam this year, but you still need to take care of yourself down there. In fact, it’s especially important to do so since seeing a doctor or getting a prescription, should something go wrong with your lady parts, can be harder than ever. Here are ways to take care of your vagina while your gynecologist is closed.
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Don’t switch birth control now
This is not an ideal time to switch birth control, especially if you want to change to one that can increase estrogen levels in the body, as these can cause yeast infections. If you’re not happy with your current birth control, then it’s best to just move to condoms for now. At the very least, talk to your doctor about how different types of birth control may affect you down there.
