Let’s Talk About Thrush Guys! #Ad

I have always found it fascinating how different men and women are when it comes to talking about the more intimate health problems that we all can have at different times during our lives.

As such I have teamed up with Canesten for their ‘Let’s Talk Health’ campaign. Canesten is opening up the conversation of talking about intimate health issues, with Thrush being top of the list.

There is still very much a stigma around that word thrush, and quite honestly there shouldn’t be. After all it’s a very common yeast infection that is found in the skin of healthy people, but when the natural balance of the skin flora is disturbed it can result in thrush.

Women in general can so easily talk about anything without fear of being made to feel that it’s too personal, and health issues are a prime example of this. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they are huddled in a group on the playground or out for the evening having a drink, they so easily appear to able to open up and talk about anything with each other.

Now, let’s talk about men!

In general, men don’t talk about health issues that may have even just a slight intimate nature to it. Men tend to keep it to themselves. I guess you could call it suffering in silence.

One particular intimate health issue that affects both men and women of all ages is thrush. Yes, that’s right, you read it right, men can get thrush too.

If you guys are anything like me, then you probably didn’t even know that men can get thrush too. I genuinely thought only women could get thrush. How wrong was I.

Men can easily get it. The reason you probably never hear about men having thrush is most likely because men simply don’t know how to open up and talk to one another.

This is why the let’s talk health campaign is fantastic. It will help men to hopefully talk more openly, and be more comfortable talking about intimate health problems.

I was thinking to myself, and I asked myself the question, do I easily talk about my own health issues, and more importantly intimate health issues?

Nowadays I tend to be able to talk about anything health wise with ease, but when I was younger this was less likely, because some conditions, and thrush in particular, has a massive stigma surrounding it that is still relevant today. Some of the misconceptions about male thrush is that it can be transmitted sexually. The truth is not every man that comes into contact with vaginal thrush will develop thrush. Two groups of men will be more vulnerable to thrush, men with a constricted foreskin and men with a weakened immune system they are more at risk. However, because thrush is very often linked to sex, this I believe is creating a stigma around male thrush, which will then hold men back from talking about intimate health issues. If you do get thrush nowadays it is easily solved with over the counter treatments such as Canesten Thrush Duo.

I know as I have gotten older I don’t have the same inhibitions that I had as a young man, so it would be of no surprise to me that younger guys struggle to talk openly about intimate health issues.

We come back to that stigma again and that’s something we need to overcome, which is where the #LetsTalkHealth campaign by Canesten really gets it right.

The post has been produced in collaboration with Canesten, but all thoughts are 100% my own.