Women have been putting things in their vaginas since the beginning of time. From douches to sex toys to tampons to yoni eggs and kegel exercisers, the list goes on. For most women, we are very intuitive with our wombs; we know when something is off internally, we know when our period is approaching, and even when ovulation is near.

I’m going to assume every single woman on earth has had some sort of imbalance in their vagina. Especially today, where our standard food supply is devoid of nutrition and laced with pesticides and chemical ingredients. This alone can have a big impact on our womb health. Our vaginas hold their very own Eco-system and are sensitive to many things including scented soaps (even essential oils can throw off our natural balance) tight pants with no air circulation, too much estrogen and again the list goes on. So, when I came across a trend on instagram about vaginal detox pearls aka womb detox pearls, herbal tampons or seanjari preeti, some red flags immediately came up.

Vaginal detox pearls or herbal tampons are tiny herbal sachets you insert in your vagina and keep in for three to seven days (you repeat this cycle several times). Some say they have a deep-rooted history dating back to ancient China, but I haven’t been able to find any information to verify if that’s true or not (I did a pretty long google search and nothing came up about their history). I’m all for natural remedies; we live a green and holistic lifestyle, but I do have some concerns with herbal tampons and their claims.

 

Here are my thoughts and concerns:

1. You can’t detox disease from your vagina. It doesn’t even make sense. Our bodies don’t work that way. You can adopt a healthy diet, take natural remedies like homeopathy and herbs and other supplements to support your body in healing not only the disease, but also the root cause of the disease. Let’s say estrogen dominance caused PCOS; your going to need to address both issues. You can’t stuff vaginal detox pearls in your vagina and expect a magic cure. It doesn’t work that way. It takes a lot more work to heal your vagina or womb than tiny sachets of herbs (now they can be used as a supportive remedy, but not a magic cure-all). I can see them helping with something like BV or yeast possibly, but not diseases of the womb. I do have to admit, it would be nice if it was that easy.
2. That tissue you expelled is not disease. One of the big claims of vaginal detox pearls is that they cure diseases of the womb (tubal blockages, endometriosis, pcos, etc). Women who use the detox pearls are posting images of large amounts of clumpy tissue they are expelling through their vaginas. They are being told that this tissue is the disease in which they are trying to rid themselves of. One major red flag about this is that depending on the color and texture of the tissue they expelled, they can supposedly pinpoint which exact disease they just eradicated from their wombs. This makes no sense if you think about it. For example, I saw a picture of a white, flesh like glob which the user claimed was a tubal blockage that has been cleared. Another picture, a darker slimy glob was claimed to be fibroids. I really don’t understand how anyone would know this? If it were true you could release certain diseases from your womb how could you even tell what that specific disease looks like? Are these diseases even clumps of tissue? I mean, in the medical world, these types of things would be sent to pathology to be analyzed by a professional pathologist under a microscope to be certain what they are. So, how would anyone who does this at home really know what disease they just eradicated? Any by the way, you can’t eliminate a tubal blockage from herbal tampons. A woman’s tubes are so tiny, about 1 cm in width,  a big glob of flesh like material would obviously not fit inside her tubes, so whatever she eliminated was definitely not a tubal blockage!
3. Toxic Shock Syndrome is rare, life-threatening complication of certain types of bacterial infections. Your putting yourself at risk for this deadly disease. Putting porous herbs in your vagina for days can be the perfect environment for bacteria to breed and get out-of-control (why do you think they say to leave a porous tampon in no more than 8 hours?). You can also screw up your super sensitive micro-flora of good bacteria and the vagina mucosa as well because things like this irritate our vaginas.
   
4. What these globs of tissue really are is globs of possible bacteria infection according to several gynecologists who have spoken against vaginal detox pearls/herbal tampons. Or, it could be the lining of your uterus which you really don’t want to shed unless your having your period. Whatever it is, it’s not good. It’s not a tubal blockage, it’s not fibroids, it’s not PCOS…
5. Vaginal detox pearls do not and cannot tighten your vagina. If they do it’s because of inflammation that has caused it to swell. Ouch. The only way to strengthen your pelvic floor or tighten your vagina is the old-school way; kegels, physical therapy, pelvic floor exercises, tools like yoni eggs or kegel weights…

 

Your vagina is perfectly capable of caring for herself. When they say she’s a self cleaning oven, they mean it. Now if she’s not cleaning house and things are off, like a yeast infection, there are a lot of safe and natural ways as well as conventional ways to bring her back to balance, but vaginal detox pearls are not it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done herbal douches, I love vaginal steaming with herbs (a much better and safer option with a verified history) and I have even soaked an organic herbal tampon in calendula tea and inserted inside for about 10 minutes to help with issues that have came up over the years and have had good results. But to take herbs and leave them in your vagina for several days doesn’t sound right. Plus the claims are crazy too…if the claims weren’t so crazy I wouldn’t have written this post.

Keep those Yoni’s happy and safe sister friends!

Check out Dr. Jen Gunter’s blog post about it here.