RE: Some improvement?!

[Guest guest]

As for pads - my doc has no doubt that one of the contributing factors to my vv is that I wore light days pads every day due to urinary incontinence and it cuts of circulating air to that tissue, creating a problem. Can you wear tampons or do you have that contact problem? If y ou can't wear tampons, maybe you could switch to (and some people yuck at this, but it worked for me) thoroughly washed old white tshirts, folded many times to fit the crotch of the underwear. At first I couldn't pin these to my undies because that created too much friction, but as I began to heal I was able to pin them. You have to wash them, but if it stops the pain, its worth it. I eventually also tore up old white cotten underwear, removed seams and such and used those as menstrual flow catchers as well.

Becky,

I came up with another alternative to using pads the regular way, with its direct and frequently irritating skin contact. & makes what they call

RED CROSS Brand Rolled Cotton. It's a sterile 12" wide, extremely soft,

thick, and cushy 100% pure absorbent cotton. I love the stuff. It comes in a 16 oz. roll, which translates to a lot of cotton, and lasts forever. My sister had

gotten it for dressing a leg wound on one of her horses several years ago and gave the extra to me. During my period, i just pull off (or you can cut) a chunk approximately the size of a pad, tease it into the configuration you want, and

place it so that it acts as a very soft and absorbent buffer between your crotch

and a pad. Not only do you avoid any contact with the pad directly, but it's very economical, since you don't have to change pads as often. Just replace with a new hunk of the cotton. And you don't have to deal with constant washing, as you

do with cloth pads. (I tried some last year, but didn't like their stiffness and the fact that they quickly developed permanent stains, despite all my best efforts.)

Works really well for me.

Hollis