Yeast infection: hearing those two words together is enough to make many women feel all kinds of itchy down there. But it turns out the same type of infection, caused by a fungus called candida, can make other places in your body itch and burn as well. Great. Luckily, Kathleen Green, M.D., ob-gyn, says that yeast infections—no matter where they turn up—can usually be treated with oral prescription medication or the same cream used to treat a vaginal yeast infection.
The fungus alone isn’t the culprit, Green says, but when the yeast outgrows the other “good bacteria” in the body, that’s when an infection can form. Things that add moisture like sweating, having sex, or sitting too long in a wet bathing suit are known to create the perfect environment for yeast to thrive in the vagina. Extra moisture in other already damp, dark places in the body can cause the fungus to grow, too.
Here are some of the other random places in the body that could be affected.