getting rid of pesky yeast infections :( TMI

PotomacSt

I'd never had a yeast infection before this past month, so forgive me if I sound like an idiot.

Around March 4 I started having itching, soreness, and burning, and a little bit of redness, but nothing terrible looking. I figured I'd just screwed up my Ph balance because I had a bad cold and had been taking hot showers up to 4x a day to help my congestion. The itching got unbearable (although OTC vagisil for itching helped a ton) and I finally called my doctor, who said "Oh, sounds like yeast" and prescribed me one 150mg diflucan. I never had discharge that sounded like what is described on the internet, nor did I have anything that looked like the scary pictures I got when I did a Google image search for yeast infections.

 It got better after taking the diflucan, then I started to have the same symptoms coming back 10 days later. When I called my doctor again, she was obviously in a huge rush to get off the phone and made me feel like an idiot. She asked, "So why are you calling? You don't want to use the OTC topical creams?" I told her I had nothing against trying topical creams, I just didn't know what to do since I'd never had this before and wasn't sure what I should or shouldn't do. She prescribed two more doses of the 150mg diflucan that I should take 4 days apart. I just took the second one today and my symptoms have been milder since the first dose, but still there. But I still haven't had any symptoms that scream "This is definitely a yeast infection!".

 Normally I think she's fabulous, but I felt really brushed off by this So here's my first question - I'm not even fully convinced yeast is what I have... is there a test that can tell me whether or not it actually is a yeast infection?

Second, I don't like the idea of taking more diflucan... it is contraindicated in 1st tri in high doses for causing birth defects. The 150 mg dose is supposed to be safe, but if that doesn't work for me, I don't really want to take any higher doses or longer courses. So are OTC topical creams safe and effective during pregnancy? If I do have a yeast infection, and this second course of diflucan doesn't work, is it still possible that one of them would work for me? If you've had hard-to-treat yeast during pregnancy, what worked for you?