Girllllllllll, I feel you, I know how much that itching, burning sensation is driving you nuts. I know if you’ve made it to this page you probably get yeast infections on the regular.

I don’t think anyone considers garlic for yeast infections on the first go. At least I didn’t.

I went to the doctor when I got my first one (I had no idea what it was) and he gave me a prescription for diflucan (back before it was sold over the counter). It wasn’t until having countless, chronic yeast infections that I started looking into more natural methods.

If you haven’t read my other post on my experience with garlic and yeast infections you should read it here first. 

So I know, like me, you probably have spent countless hours thinking about your yeast infection, crying over your yeast infections, worrying about how yeast infections are affecting your sex life and hoping desperately that this one is the last one!

I just wanted to share that using garlic worked great for me. Once I felt that itchy burning sensation coming on I’d use garlic and it would stop my yeast infection dead in its tracks. If I was unable to catch it early on I would still use garlic to speed up the healing process once a full-fledged infection had brewed.

However, garlic is a temporary fix! It will fix your symptoms but it won’t prevent you from getting another yeast infection in the future.

I managed to stop my chronic yeast infections (been 4 years yeast infection free)  altogether by changing the way I eat – if you want to try out the method that led me to yeast infection freedom and brought me incredible overall health you can grab your free guide here.

Okay now onto the details. 

How to Use Garlic For Yeast Infections

Before ever deciding to shove this up my hoo-ha I read through lots of blogs and articles on the topic and came up with this method.

1. Get a decent size clove of garlic

2. Cut off the bottom rough end of the garlic clove (that part where it was attached to the bulb

3. Poke holes in garlic with a fork (I usually poke the fork in the garlic 4 times so I have like 16 holes around the clove

4. Let sit for 15 minutes on the counter. Allicin is a compound in garlic that has health-promoting properties but it emerges when the garlic is left exposed to air. I do not know exactly how the garlic fought my yeast infections but I always made sure to do this step in case allicin was the key. This is a good tip for cooking with garlic too – chop and let sit before cooking to get all the benefits!

5. Coat the entire clove of garlic in coconut oil or lube (if you don’t have coconut oil). You must coat it in something otherwise the garlic will burn your fragile skin like a bitch as you’re shoving it up there  (believe me I know from experience) – and we don’t want it burning anymore than it already is.

6. I personally push it as far as my pointer finger will let me. I believe I have a pretty average size vaginal canal with a medium cervix. I noticed other girls on the internet would tie floss (unflavoured/unwaxed) around the garlic clove and let part of the string hang-out so it wouldn’t get ‘lost’.

I couldn’t understand this because I can reach all areas inside my vagina with my fingers. However, perhaps if you have a high cervix and short fingers maybe you want to think about tying floss to it?

7. Leave it overnight, or throughout the day, and use fingers to remove OR bear down. Basically, if you sit on the toilet and push like you would during a bowel movement the garlic will make it’s way out on its own or move further down the canal. 

Questions About Garlic for Yeast Infections

Will I smell like garlic?

• I would notice that the room would smell like garlic occasionally when I woke up after sleeping with one in
• No one actually told me I smelled like garlic and when I asked people if they smelled garlic on me they did not know what I was talking about
• I would take my garlic out in the morning and by the late afternoon my partner would not notice any garlicy smells during funny business – this leads me to believe the smell does not linger down there for long

How long should I use garlic for?

• I typically would put a clove in at night once I got quite itchy and could feel the yeast infection coming on. I would remove the garlic clove in the morning and if the itching persisted I would put it in again at night
• If I already had a full-blown yeast infection (and couldn’t catch it early for one reason or another) I would put the garlic in at night and a new one in the morning.  Then I would take it out a around dinner and spend a few hours without it in the evening and see how my vagina felt…..if still itchy I would repeat that night
• I never used garlic for more than two days in a row

Tips for choosing garlic

• I always eye up my garlic before sticking it in because sometimes garlic can look old, dried out, or slightly rotten so pay attention to your clove!
• I want my clove to look healthy, fresh, and smell good
• I always use garlic from a bulb. Never the pre-peeled garlic because I have no idea where it’s been….one time I watched a show called Rotten on Netflix and it showed prisoners peeling the garlic cloves with their bare hands…..no pre-peeled garlic for me! 

And that my friends is exactly how I used garlic for yeast infections. This treatment worked like a charm for me when an infection arose. But ultimately changing to a plant-based diet is what led me to be entirely free from the chronic yeast infections (and a ton of other health issues) that once plagued me.

I haven’t stuck a clove up my hoo-ha in almost four years because I haven’t needed to! I’ve outlined how I did this in a free little guide which you can check out here. 

And I just wanted to reiterate that this is entirely based on my own personal experience so do some research before you decide if it’s right for you! And if you decide not to go the natural route, I found Diflucan from the pharmacy worked pretty great too!  

Here is a good article promoting the use of garlic vaginally whilst here is another article saying the opposite. It’s always good to do a little research of both sides before committing to anything 🙂 .