Vagisil - Good for What Ails You

I have a great husband who knows my limits, and one of those limits is how much time I can spend around other people – including my precious child – before I start to slowly go mad. An introvert at heart, I require a decent amount of down time alone each day so I can recover from the hours I spend being pulled at, whined to, and drooled on. My need for breaks is naturally at odds with my husband’s need to, you know, go to work and earn money so he can support our family. He works an odd schedule, so I am fortunate that he has more time than most husbands to entertain and bond with the kiddo, which allows me some time off. Unfortunately, he travels sometimes – leaving me alone with a toddler for days at a time.

Like I said, he knows my limits, and he almost always arranges with his parents for the kiddo to spend the night at least once while my husband is gone. This way he doesn’t come home to an irritable wife who’s likely to sigh loudly and slam doors and yell at the dogs. Or, more likely than usual. 

A few months ago my husband was out of town on one of these trips, and the kiddo was spending the night at his grandparents’, which meant I got to do some much-needed yard work. I edged some flower beds in the back yard and hacked at some unidentified bushes and saplings on the border of our yard and the woods behind it. Afterward, sweaty and hot, I came inside and sat down at the computer. An absent-minded gesture to rub the front of my neck turned into a compulsive need to scratch my neck and throat. I couldn’t stop, and the itch began spreading to my chest. An examination in the bathroom mirror revealed no visible rash, but the area was red and irritated. And it itched like mad. Quickly, I made a mental list of the contents of my overflowing, unorganized medicine cabinet, and determined that my only tube of hydrocortisone was with the kiddo, who suffers from eczema. In absence of a cream, I tried putting a bag of frozen peas on it, thinking maybe this would help dull the incessant itch. It works for pain, why not itching too? It’s all nerve endings, right? But the only thing this accomplished was to make the area cold and wet as well as itchy. I had to resort to drastic measures. Reluctantly, I retreated to my master bathroom to retrieve the only thing I had in the house to treat itching – a tube of Vagisil. I read the warning labels, decided I didn’t care what might happen, and spread it over my neck and chest. And you know what? Within 20 minutes the itching was gone, and my neck and chest smelled as fresh as a midsummer’s eve. 

Instant relief.

When I could think about something other than the infuriating need to scratch, I further considered the safety warning that said “do not spread over large areas of the body.” “Large” is a highly subjective term. Did that mean the size of my palm, or a whole leg? What would happen if I did put it on a large body part? And what about women who use the cream on its intended body part – which, let’s admit, could maybe be considered large? I mean, I pushed out a baby. It’s not like a tight-laced corset anymore, if we’re going to be honest. I’ve been doing kegels for more than a year now, and I think things are as close to factory original as they’re going to get, but for those women who have had 5 or 10 or 19 children – what about them? Can they safely use Vagisil? 

Perhaps I should write a letter to the nice people at the Vagisil company and ask them to be more specific about their warnings, or to define “large,” or to inquire whether it can be used on any body part in case of a gardening emergency. I’m sure they’d appreciate my story.

Safety first, that's what I always say.