“I read about vaginal odor. What causes the smell? I’m a bit worried because I feel there’s a smell, and my underwear has holes. Is it because of acid?”
Normally, I don’t usually answer questions sent via messages in various forms because I’m concerned about inaccuracies in responses. Medical stories flow with the information received, and just narrating is the roughest set of data. Even sending pictures sometimes doesn’t help as they can be unclear.
But sometimes I feel like answering because it’s a set of knowledge that can be shared, like the question above.
“What causes the smell?” This is the first question. “Is it acid?” This is the second question.
Let’s address each point one by one.
The vagina has a mild scent. I don’t know how to describe the vaginal smell. Fragrant, not fragrant, smelly, not smelly. For me, it’s slightly musky. It’s not smelly; it’s a pleasantly musky scent.
The perception of smell depends on personal preference and experience. It’s subjective.
This leads to the question of what kind of smell is considered abnormal.
This credit goes to the owner of the vagina. If the owner feels it’s different from what they’re used to, it’s likely abnormal (writing this, I support frequently smelling one’s own vagina).
If someone reads my articles often, they might be familiar, and I remember writing about vaginal odor before.
If the smell is like fishy water, it might be due to an imbalance of local bacteria in the vagina (mostly caused by too much bacteria from the anus mixing in). That fishy smell can be very strong, similar to ammonia when the vagina comes into contact with the alkaline nature of semen.
If the smell is rotten, it might be due to a severe infection, especially cervical cancer with infection, or forgetting something inside the vagina. These are the main abnormal smells. Fungal infections have no smell, herpes infections have no smell, syphilis has no smell.
Now to question 2, “Is it acid?”
Yes, the vagina has a mild acidity. It’s lactic acid, produced by microorganisms called “Lactobacillus.”
Lactobacillus is the origin of human health. We acquire it as we pass through our mother’s birth canal. We ingest the vaginal fluid of our mother during birth, and the bacteria travel into our mouth, throat, and multiply abundantly in our intestines. Have you ever smelled the stool of a breastfed infant? That’s the smell of lactic acid.
“The underwear has holes, is it because of acid?” I’m guessing she means the discharge that comes into contact with the underwear.
“Noooooo” is a grammatically incorrect response.
The acidity mentioned is very mild. It’s gentle on the skin, gentle on the vagina, which is extremely delicate, gentle on everything.
I think the holes in the underwear could be caused by various reasons.
Caused by hand washing, believe it or not. The area where the underwear touches the vagina is often scrubbed the hardest to remove discharge stains.
Caused by being pulled by the adhesive strip of sanitary pads. “Rip” is a sound I’m familiar with, and I’ve often seen fabric damage from chronic adhesive strip pulling (hehe).
Or actually, it might not be holes at the vaginal contact point but around the buttocks, like scratching an itchy butt vigorously. If that’s the case, the underwear can have holes too.
Um… these are all assumptions. Please don’t take them as facts.
“The underwear has holes, is it because of acid?”
“It’s acid, probably, but it can’t make the underwear have holes.” This kind of answer tickles me. Please have mercy on the tongue, fingers, and penis of us all. If the acid could corrode underwear until it has holes, I would have been speaking unclearly for a long time.
Thanapan Choobun
Feb 18, 67 Source: Asst. Prof. Dr. Thanapan Choobun https://facebook.com/thanapan.choobun