Women Have to Be Told NOT to Put Cloves of Garlic up Their Vaginas to Cure Thrush

A well-known sexpert has publicly reminded women to not insert cloves of garlic up their vaginas in the hopes that it will cure thrush.

We’re going to go ahead and file this one in the “shit we all shouldn’t have to be told” category. Like the time we were told not to put Vicks VapoRub up there, or that thing about the cucumbers.

Canadian-American obstetrician-gynecologist and New York Times health columnist Dr. Jennifer Gunter took to Twitter to set the record straight on exactly why shoving the pungent bulb up your vag isn’t a good idea.

Why you should not put garlic in your vagina.
A thread.
Garlic contains allicin, in THE LAB it MAY have antifungal (i.e. anti yeast) properties. This is in a lab, not even in mice. Just a dish of cells. Your vagina is not a dish of cells. #vaginaisanogarliczone 1/8

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) April 23, 2019

I think the hashtag really makes it, don’t you? Can you believe that we have to be told that our vaginas shouldn’t be filled with garlic?

Lots of vaginal garlic aficionados (I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO TWEET THAT IN 2019, BUT HERE WE ARE) recommend inserting a clove. This means they don’t understand for allicin to be released the garlic has to be cut or crushed. Sigh. #vaginaisanogarliczone 2/8

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) April 23, 2019

Garlic could have bacteria from the soil. Bacteria from the soil can be pathogenic — bad for the body. That’s why we clean wounds. If you actually happen to have an inflamed yeasty vagina that soil bacteria would be more likely to infect #vaginaisanogarliczone 3/8

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) April 23, 2019

So for garlic to work you would have to crush it and stuff it up somehow. There is still the dirt thing. And the cut up garlic on raw tissues thing (OUCH). And the fishing of the garlic out by the gyno thing. #vaginaisanogarliczone 4/8

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) April 23, 2019

Ugghh, I could not think of anything worse than having to fish crushed raw garlic out of my nether regions while experiencing a raging case of thrush.

If this is the sort of thing that people are resorting to instead of hitting up their friendly pharmacist for some over the counter treatment, then the world is in a worse place than we might think. When did science become bad?

What happened to “if pain persists, see your doctor”? When did it turn into “see the guy who restocks the fresh produce at your local supermarket”? Natural does not always mean best.

When people tell me they insert garlic cloves, lemon, yogurt and other edibles in their vagina to clean them out. Sisters please! Stop wasting your groceries. Just use water. Just water. ? pic.twitter.com/RsCveXb8Mc

— Yummy Mummy (@yummymummyke) March 15, 2019

If you need to know more about why you shouldn’t put garlic or other edibles in your noonie, Dr Jen Gunter has written a piece for the New York Times about the subject here.

We’ll give the last word to her, taken from her article linked above:

“It’s stunning that in this great age of information that can we have so much misinformation about our bodies and our sexuality. The internet has changed the speed at which we can acquire medical information, but certainly not the accuracy.”