Many people find yeast infections somewhat confusing and can't understand how they end up with one.
It's often stated that you 'catch' them through sex but that's not strictly true.
Let's start with the basics.
Your body is teaming with all sorts of life both inside and out.
However clean you may be you'll still have microscopic life living on you.
These include many types of bacteria and yeasts that live in a sort of harmony with your body.
Some of them do benefit you but most just use your body as a feeding and breeding ground.
As gross as it may sound they do no harm as a healthy body is able to cope with these opportunist life forms.
However if something changes in the body environment then all this can change and problems can occur.
This is what happens when you have a yeast infection.
What you are suffering from isn't really an infection where your body is suddenly invaded by something as happens when you catch a cold virus.
Yeast infections are simply an overgrowth in your resident yeast population.
Most people will have yeasts living somewhere in or on their bodies.
They like warm, moist areas which is why they are often found in the vagina and any where there are body folds like the groin and armpits.
Normally yeasts are kept in check by certain types of bacteria and by the body's slightly acidic pH.
Candida Albicans is the most opportunistic of the yeast varieties.
If areas of the body where they live get warmer or moister then Candida yeasts will start to multiply.
If they multiply quickly enough they will soon outnumber the bacteria that keep them in check.
As their numbers increase their excretions begin to make the immediate environment more alkaline.
This suits the yeasts who then begin to increase in number still further.
If the numbers increase enough they will start to irritate the body and you end up with a yeast infection.
Just how quickly your body starts to react against an overgrowth of yeast depends very much on individual tolerance levels.
It's clear that some people are very sensitive to increases in the levels of yeasts.
Causes of changes to the body environment include taking antibiotics as they are quite indiscriminate in the types of bacteria they kill off so "good" bacteria is killed off along with the bad.
Getting hot and sweaty can also be enough to start off an attack for some people.
For women the monthly changes in the vagina means that at times pH levels favor the overgrowth of Candida Albicans.
For most women this overgrowth will be slight and go unnoticed for others the monthly change to pH levels will be great enough to cause problems.
So yes it's true that you can catch yeasts like Candida Albicans from sexual partners but that doesn't mean you'll get an infection.
You and the yeasts can co-exist in relative harmony until something else happens to you that triggers off a yeast population explosion.