Women's health urethra color

There is no single standard for the color of a healthy woman's urethral opening. It usually fluctuates in the range from light pink to dark brown. As long as there are no discomfort symptoms such as redness, swelling, stinging, frequent urination and urgency, the color is normal regardless of the color, and there is no need to worry about it at all.

I just met a 22-year-old girl in the clinic last week. She came in with red eyes and said that she read popular science on the Internet and said that a healthy urethral opening must be light pink. She looked in the mirror and saw that she looked brown. She was so scared that she couldn't sleep well and felt that she was seriously ill. The urine routine and vulvar examination turned out to be normal. It took me ten minutes to explain to her before she dared to believe it. Before leaving, she repeatedly asked, "Is it really not caused by my unhygienic private life?" ”

To be honest, this misunderstanding that "it must be pink to be healthy" is mostly caused by the anxiety of unscrupulous merchants in order to sell private parts whitening products. Some people even use this to make up the rumor that "dark color means frequent sex", which is pure nonsense. First of all, many people can't even figure out the location of the urethral opening - it is a small opening with a diameter of only a few millimeters below the glans clitoris and above the vaginal opening. Many people look in the mirror for a long time and mistake the color of the labia minora and even the vaginal opening for the urethral opening. Naturally, the more they look at it, the more "something is wrong".

When it comes to the influencing factors of color, individual differences are really huge. Just like some people are born with cold fair skin and others with yellow and black skin, the degree of pigmentation in the vulva is inherently affected by genetics. I have seen little girls who have never been in love who are born with heavy pigmentation and a dark brown urethral opening, and there are no problems. Then there are changes in hormone levels. Children before puberty have low estrogen, and the urethral orifice mucosa is mostly light pink. When entering puberty, estrogen rises, and pigments will naturally slowly deposit. During pregnancy, estrogen reaches its peak, and many pregnant women’s urethral orifices will even turn dark brown. When the hormones drop after childbirth, it may become lighter, but it is impossible to return to the state before puberty. These are all normal physiological changes. There are also external factors such as long-term wearing of tight pants, long-term cycling, and daily friction, which can also aggravate local pigmentation and have nothing to do with "unhealthy".

Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry about color changes at all. What you really need to be vigilant about is sudden color change , rather than being naturally dark in color. A while ago, there was a 30-year-old patient who held in his urine and failed to clean himself in time after having sex last week. The next day, his urethral lip was bright red, and it hurt when he peeed. He also felt that he couldn't urinate completely. When he checked his urine, his white blood cells were three times higher. This is typical urethritis. He took antibiotics for three days and was cured. If other people find that the urethral opening suddenly turns white, feels hard and rough to the touch, and is accompanied by stubborn itching, they should be wary of vulvar lichen sclerosus, also known as vulvar leukoplakia. In this case, they need to find a doctor for intervention in time. Don't delay things by applying hormone ointments on your own.

Oh, by the way, don’t mess with this area. Last month, a girl listened to the scammers on WeChat and bought hundreds of yuan of whitening essence for her private parts to apply to the urethral opening. The next day, the area became red, swollen and ulcerated, and it hurt to walk. It took two days of infusion before the swelling subsided. The mucous membrane of the urethral opening is more delicate than the inside of your eyelids. Don't use any whitening products or cleaning soaps there. Just rinse the vulva with warm water every day.

Popular science in the early years did regard light pink as a typical manifestation of a healthy urethral opening, but in recent years, both in the field of gynecology and urology, more and more emphasis has been placed on the importance of individual differences - to put it bluntly, there is no unified "standard answer" for your body. I have seen as many as 800 urethral openings over the years, and they come in all colors. As long as there is no discomfort, they are all healthy. If you are really not sure, go to a regular hospital to register. A few dollars of registration fee can solve the problem. Don’t think about it by looking at the pictures on the Internet, and don’t be cut off by the messy anxiety marketing.