// BBC HEALTH NEWS — SALUTE
I have a condition people are too embarrassed to talk about
Monica is the founder of charity Women's Health Hope
This report contains detailed descriptions of medical symptoms.
Monica Thomas was in her teens when she started experiencing intimate itching and soreness, but despite numerous trips to the doctors it was dismissed as thrush.
Her symptoms got worse, with sores and blisters leaving her in constant pain.
"I was bed bound for quite a long time because I couldn't walk," she says.
Monica says she was examined 28 times in six months before being offered a biopsy.
She says "we don't really talk about" gynaecological health as a society so there is a taboo around speaking about symptoms.
"Even when we go to the doctors, for me, the embarrassment of having to get undressed...with these doctors looking it is embarrassing," she says.
"But equally when you're in pain or it's itching and you've got discomfort, living with it is just as bad."
The 34-year-old from Suffolk was eventually diagnosed with a condition called lichen sclerosus.