Brief Answer:
Vaginal odor is not normal and usually indicates infection.

Detailed Answer:
Hello, and i hope I can help you today.

It is not possible for me to examine you and judge what the exact odor is you have or where it is coming from, but a true odorous vaginal discharge usually indicates some kind of infection.

The two most common types of vaginal infections that cause odor are Bacterial Vaginosis and Trichomonas. Bacterial Vaginosis produces a discharge that is usually watery and grey, and produces an odor most noticable after sex. Trichomonas usually causes itching, burning with urination, and an odor that is most notable when you pass urine. Both can be diagnosed in a gynecologist's office with an examination and culture of your vaginal fluid, and both need antibiotics for treatment. They are not sexually transmitted infections, so would not be picked up on a culture or test for STD's. Other things that can help are keeping your pubic and body hair short to keep sweat from being trapped next your skin, wearing breathable cotton underwear and loose-fitting clothing, and changing pads and liners frequently during your period. Using medicated powder (like Gold Bond or Ammens) around the genital area can also be deodorizing. Vagisil is not a medical product and actually does not cure any disease, and Monistat only treats vaginal yeast infections, which normally don't cause odor.

Some women, if they are heavy, have difficulty properly cleaning their vaginal area, and also may leak small amounts of urine without noticing. Both are reasons that it can be hard to control vaginal odor if you are overweight. Getting a sprayer for your shower to wash well and being on the lookout for urine leakage may also help in making a diagnosis.

Regarding body odor, it is extremely difficult to make suggestions to you without being able to physically examine you and go through your personal hygiene practices in detail. Obviously, washing thoroughly with deodorant soap can help. You mention that you take 5 baths a day, as a general rule, showering is better for cleaning as you can rinse the dirty water from your body. If the odor is obvious when people pass you by while you are clothed, it may be your clothing that has an odor rather than your body. Living with smokers or strong cooking smells in the home can permeate your clothing and cause noticeable odor on your clothes.

So, in summary, finding out why the odor is present is the only way to properly come up with treatment. Only an examination in person can truly make a diagnosis, however i hope I provided some suggestions that are useful to you.

I hope that I was able to help answer your question today and that this information was helpful. If you have additional questions, it would be helpful to have a little more information about you, like your height and weight, what specific diagnosis and treatments previous physicians have tried for you, and what surgery you referred to in your past history, whether you are sexually active, and what your daily hygiene routine is specifically.

Best wishes,

Dr. Brown

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Brief Answer:
I can find no credible evidence that garlic helps body odor

Detailed Answer:
Hello again, and I apologize for the delay in my response.

I cannot find any reference that says that garlic clove solutions help to treat body odor. In fact, there are suggestions that eating garlic and onions can make body odor worse. So I cannot recommend using it for this purpose. Placing anything that is a food item inside the vagina like garlic, or yogurt, as some people suggest, is definitely not medically recommended because bacteria can grow on food items and cause a potentially serious vaginal infection. If you want something vaginal to try, there is an over-the-counter product called RePhresh gel that restores your vaginal pH which helps your vagina to clean itself better and may improve vaginal odor not due to infection.

Again, as i stated previously, when you are obese it can be difficult to clean yourself fully and dry yourself completely, especially where your skin folds on itself, like in your groin, vulva and armpits. I really think that using a sprayer or shower to wash yourself instead of taking baths will help significantly, as well as keeping dry with powder. Furthermore, if it is difficult to completely dry certain areas of your body, using a blow dryer on a low or no-heat setting can also be useful.

Of course, working on losing weight in general will decrease the amount you perspire during regular activities which can decrease whatever component sweat contributes to the problem.

Again, because I cannot examine you, it is still not possible to pinpoint the exact source of the odor. I have had a patient previously with your situation- where others described an odor while it was unnoticeable to the patient, and the smell was actually coming from her clothing, which was kept in a closet where a vent allowed cigar smoke to get all over her clothes. So if you live with or near a smoker, or have strong food odors in the home, that may be the problem as well having nothing to do with your hygiene.

So I hope this additional information was helpful to you and that it gives you ideas of how to figure out exactly where the odor is coming from. However, I do not think garlic will help your situation.

Take care,

Dr. Brown

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