Yeast infections are the bane of a woman’s existence. Anything can cause them. Getting rid of the infection is a nuisance and can put a damper on your sexual activity anywhere from a day to a week, depending on the severity.

Antibiotics are the first to be suspected of causing a vaginal yeast infection; too much sugar, bread, potatoes, and tight-fitting clothing are next in line. It’s a dark, moisture-laden place that doesn’t get a lot of fresh air unless you live on a nude beach or walk around buck-naked while you’re at home.

We all know the classic symptoms of a yeast infection: itchy, red, irritated vagina that begs to be scratched off into oblivion. And we know how to cure them: a simple at-home treatment with a vaginal suppository or a little pink pill from the doctor clears it right up.

But, have you ever heard of having a yeast infection on your skin? When I was first diagnosed, I was baffled. I’m clean. I don’t sweat a lot. I wash my clothing often and never wear anything that is damp or rain-soaked.

My doctor initially suggested that I was allergic to something, he didn’t know what, and we couldn’t find out because I have been uninsured for my entire adult life. Allergen tap tests are not cheap, and I would have to be tested for about thirty different, albeit common, allergens. To confirm his belief, he took a pen and ran it down the center of my upturned forearm. It turned bright pink and puffed up a little bit. He simply shrugged his shoulders and suggested I start eliminating things from my diet and daily regimen in order to determine what it was.

I stopped using detergents with perfumes and dyes. I went back to using Ivory bath soap because it is said to be so pure it floats. I stopped using lotions, body sprays and fabric softeners. Basically, everything that was fun, girly, or that smelled good went into the trash.

The infection got worse. I started itching like crazy around my neck and shoulders, and blooms of bacteria in the form of red, ragged circles appeared from the back of my shoulders to the tops of my breasts. I was mortified and self-conscious. Up until this point, I had perfect skin, and now I didn’t, and I couldn’t figure out what was causing it to save my life.

And my doctor sure as hell didn’t know either. He isn’t board certified in dermatology, but the man has been around long enough to know what’s what, and even he was baffled. No medical journal or text that he found could give information on what causes this, but they do know that once it happens the chance of recurrence is pretty high. He did prescribe a gel medication to apply every day, three times a day. It removed the symptoms but didn’t treat the source of the problem.

Right before the infection happened, I’d say about a month before, my doctor put me on a new birth control. It was one of the nine dollar a month generics that you can get from a couple of the big box pharmacies. I thought everything was perfectly fine. I didn’t have any mood swings, and I wasn’t having really bad cramps or anything like that. So, I never gave it a second thought. Neither did my doctor. The emotions and mood swings I was having were deemed situational, not because of the pill.

For two and a half years, I remained on the same script. I fought with the spots and did the gel treatment, and just gave up any hope that I would ever figure out what was causing the infection. I brought back all of my beloved beauty products and essentially said: fuck it. I resorted to putting makeup over the most glaring spots when I was going out in public and tried to wear outfits that would cover the majority of the discoloration. Thankfully, no one ever made leper-colony jokes or anything of that nature.

Then about a month ago, I found myself in a position where I had to cough up a little over five hundred dollars for a gynecologist visit or stop taking the pill. Unless that money fell out of the sky or grew on a tree outside of my window, going to the doctor wasn’t an option. It was an easy decision to make because my man and I are thinking of going the vasectomy route and had been discussing getting me off the pill anyway.

Within two weeks of being off the pill, my chest started to clear up. Within three weeks, the spots could hardly be seen, and now that we’re into week four, they’re completely gone. As are all of the itching and self-esteem issues I had.

Was it the pill? I am not a medical professional, but it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. The problem started when I began that script, and the problem stopped when I ran out and it was no longer in my system. When I do the same pen test that my doctor performed on my arm, my skin does not turn bright pink, and it does not puff up like it did that day.

I am also a lot more relaxed and calm, whereas before my man described me as a ball of anxiety-riddled compulsive tendencies. I’ve gone through my first cycle after stopping the pill and my cramps are non-existent. The emotional fuckwittery is gone, i.e. crying at every commercial that gets close to tugging on my heartstrings.

And maybe allergic is too strong of a word, but I definitely see a huge improvement in my overall attitude, my skin and the severity of my period has significantly decreased. And I’m really inclined to believe it was the pill that caused all of my issues in the first place.

While my condition and reaction to the pill might be a fluke, there might also be a ton of women out there with similar issues. So ladies, if things don’t seem right, or there’s something that has changed since you began a hormonal birth control formula, it might be time to evaluate your method and see if you can’t find something that works better for you. My discovery was an accident, but I’m really glad it happened later than never.