Intertrigo - so painful. Help?

I'm new here and hoping for some help.

I'm 28 and I'm at my heaviest - 230 lbs. For almost a year I have battled intertrigo under my breasts but I am now battling it everywhere: under both breasts, both underarms, inner thighs and under my lower belly (the worst and most painful).

I shower daily and use as much body wash on the areas as possible. I pat each area dry with a towel and then I apply Parent's Choice diaper rash cream to every area. And under my belly, I've been putting a washcloth under the fold to help keep it dry. Sometimes I alternate between the cream and cornstarch baby powder.

But nothing is working. I know losing weight will clear it up but I'm hurting so bad from it that I don't want to exercise or hardly move for that matter. And I do not have health insurance to get it checked out by a doctor.

Any advice??

Try 3 day yeast infection cream. Several companies make it. It works better than diaper rash cream. And instead of cornstarch baby powder, try gold bond medicated extra strength. You just have to find the combo that works for you. Good luck!

I burned my feet pretty bad back in the day. Afterwards I had problems with my feet quite a bit. We kept thinking that there was a fungus issue and I kept reading it with the typical athlete's foot type treatments. It turns out it was a bacterial issue and I was told to go down to Walmart and get acne cream that had the highest active ingredient and use that. I fought that for two and a half years and then acne cream cleared it up in less than a week. That was 15 plus years ago. I've never had to do it since. You may want to get it looked at from a different perspective to see what's really going on.

Manuka Honey is a miracle, clears up rashes, fungal infections, etc. It's all natural and has antibiotic properties. It even takes away the desire to itch the area and eases pain. Might be worth a try, hope this helps. Good luck to you!

Oftentimes moistnointments are not the cure. Gold bond medicated power works miracles for me, along with keeping the areas dry. Don't know if it will help you, that's for a doctor to say. But helps me for sure.

Thank y'all! I tried gold bond medicated powder but it burned so bad and had me feeling miserable. Is the bad burning sensation normal?

Also, I've been trying regular antibiotic ointment on my stomach area. Is this a smart thing to do?

And would alternating between cream and powder help? Maybe cream in the morning and powder at night?

The Gold Bond has menthol in it, so it does burn but it also is great at drying skin out. I found the burn went away pretty quickly, but if your skin it really broken, maybe you want to wait until the cream heals it a bit. Try not sleeping with anything on either so the air can circulate around you.

It's most likely a yeast infection, so something that kills yeast specifically like the 3 day cream is most helpful I've found. I used powder to maintain healthy skin, but when my skin was infected I switched to the cream until it healed the skin before I switched to powder again.

I feel for you, it's just miserable especially in the hot summer weather. One thing I never tried because the cream helped me but read about, was washing your body with Selsun Blue shampoo. The selenium in it is supposed to help with the infection.

Thanks for replying. Mine is really bad so I don't know if a 3 day cream will make a dent or not. Any other kind of yeast or antifungal cream you recommend?

The only thing better I think would be prescription strength from a doctor. I am no doctor so take my advice with a grain of salt, I just had a bout of it last fall and this is how I got rid of it. Not sure if the washcloth is helping or hurting. If it's really bad, do think about seeing a doctor!

edited to add, showering more than once a day and keeping it clean is really important too. If you do keep using a cloth, change it frequently for a clean one.

Also, should I continue to put a washcloth under my stomach like I've been doing? I apply diaper rash cream and then put the rag under my stomach all day until I apply baby powder at night. It hurts with the rag there but if I don't then the cream feels really moist and uncomfortable but I don't know if having the rag there all day is making the cream ineffective or not??

And, do you recommend applying regular antibiotic ointment to the area?