Chances are you have a pretty decent idea what is happening when you get your period: Your uterine lining builds up, hopes that a sperm meets your egg, gets its hopes dashed when there’s no baby, then sheds it all off. Then comes the pads and tampons. But as we all know, there’s a lot going on in — and coming out of — the vagina the other three weeks of the month. What exactly is all that gooey stuff?
Dr. Judith Hersh, MD, answers:
It depends on where you are in your cycle and what hormones are dominant. So how your vaginal secretions look will change week by week.
Pre-period: Before you get your first-ever period, you may notice that you have a lot of white/grey sticky discharge that can be irritating to your vulva. “It’s a warning that you are going to get your period in the next 6 months,” Dr. Hersh says.
When you look under the microscope, what you see are mature vaginal cells that are shedding off. It’s really just the lining of the vagina building up, as the cells are going from immature to mature. Dr. Hersh notes that sometimes, girls and their moms assume it’s a yeast infection and treat it with over-the-counter medicine, which can just cause more irritation.
The best way to address it is with water to keep the area as clean as you can and add a protective barrier like coconut oil — something to protect the vulva, but nothing medicated, Dr. Hersh recommends.
Week 3: Around day 14, more or less, your body is at its most fertile and your secretions reflect this. For the 24 hours that you are most fertile, what you get is this discharge that looks just like egg white. It suddenly goes from being white to clear and very stretchy, says Dr. Hersh.
There is even a name for the stretchiness of the secretion, which doctors use to predict fertility: spinnbarkeit. Hersh cautions that it can be very viscous, and drawy and you may need a panty liner.
Week 4: After the egg whites go away, progesterone takes over and the secretions becomes thicker and white, though Dr. Hersh notes that it will likely be thinner than the secretions you saw during Week 2. It should have no odour, and isn’t very irritating. It will start to thin out, and then you get your period, and the cycle starts all over.
In addition to all the normal stuff coming out of you, here’s a primer on abnormal secretions — what causes them and what they look and feel like. As always, if you are worried, seek out medical help:
Yeast: It will look thick, white, and clumpy, and is often compared to cottage cheese. Your vulva may look really red and raw.
Bacterial vaginosis (BV): Dr. Hersh calls the vagina a “beautifully integrated neighborhood,” with a lot of friendly bacteria and yeast living in harmony. BV occurs when one of the bacteria takes over — it’s not a sexually transmitted infection. The discharge will be a grayish color, feel irritating, and smell like fish.
Gonorrhea: It doesn’t always produce a discharge, but when it does, Dr. Hersh says, it will be heavy and grey, yellow, or green, and “gross.”
Trichomoniasis: It will show up as a heavy, grey, sometimes frothy, irritating discharge.
The best way to not get too freaked out about all this is to make yourself acquainted with… yourself… so that you know what “normal” looks like for you.
This article first appeared in the teen fashion and lifestyle magazine website teenvogue
