bacterial vaginosis

[birgie]

Ok it seems like everytime i would have sex I would get BV. I dont have health insurance until i get out of school in a few months so i cant keep going to the doctor but my concern is that it will cause me not to have kids in the future. Ive read up on it and it seems serious. my doctor said to take this med once a week for a while which i guess ill do but its a pain in the but. Anyone else have any advice or natural remedies to get rid of this????

[Katrina]

I wish I did. I don't know anything about bacterial vaginosis. Are you on an antibiotic? Is it not curable? What medication were you given? Do you know in what way it effects your fertility? Sorry for the all the questions.

I hope you get the answers you need and that someone here can help you.

[tigger_gal]

the problem could lie with your husban.. he may carry to much of whatever it is that causes the problem.. when my hubby drank non stop.. I always got a yeast infection, and it was traced back to the beer... it wouldn't hurt to discuss this with your doctor..
the common med is metrogel.. wishing you lots of luck on finding out why...

[Judith56]

I have had it several times and I use a prescription called Metro Gel. It works really well for me. Is this what they gave you? Judith

[marsi4]

Hi!
What are the symptoms of bacterial vaginosis? Is it diagnosed with a swab sample of the vaginal area? I tend to get mucous discharges every time I wipe myself after I urinate and they have a little bit of a fishy smell. Could that be part of bacterial vaginosis or something else? Does this happen to anybody else?

Marsi4

[Katrina]

She tested me for bacterial vaginosis (looked at vaginal fluid undermicroscope)

[quote]ICLori09-24-2004, 10:10 PM
Hi, Blackcat. I had bacterial vaginosis. No clinical signs of it (bad smell, itching) or anything, it just showed up on my pap smear. I didn't treat it, and by the next year it was still there

so they treated it. But by this time I also had IC, and they were hoping that by treating the BV the IC would go away. It didn't, didn't make any difference. And I still have vulvar pain and redness and irritation - for me it's all because of the IC pee irritating those tissues. It's like I'm urinating out some poison or battery acid all the time that, even with short duration contact with my outer tissues, still makes them all raw and red.

Hope you feel better soon,
Blessings, Lori

http://www.ic-network.com/forum/arch...p?t-10288.html

Sarojini05-11-2004, 12:22 PM
Grace... have you been checked by your gyno for other organisms besides yeast that might be causing your symptoms? Bacterial vaginosis (BV) can cause burning and itching too-- and also sometimes a "fishy" odor down there, but not always. They can clear that up with some Flagyl or other oral antibiotic.

I hope these can answer your questions Marsi4 Your description was a lot like Jen's so I would say it could be part of bacterial vaginosis...any new symptoms should be brought to the attention of your doctor though.

[Briza]

Throughout my twenties I also would get BV almost every time I had sex. I was treated with the antibiotic Flagyl daily for a week. That always cured the BV, but then the yeast would set in, so I always made sure to be prepared to treat that when I was finished with the course of antibiotics.

Your partner can be treated, too, with antibiotics, so you don’t end up passing the bacteria back and forth to each other.

That went on for about ten years. I don’t have problems anymore with BV. Maybe I outgrew it, for whatever reason, but still have problems with minor chronic yeast infections.

I had a laparoscopy last year when I was in diagnosis stage for IC. My doctor discovered during that procedure that one of my fallopian tubes was blocked with scar tissue, which he said can be caused by repeated, prolonged, or untreated infections. The other tube was just fine. He said if I ever tried to get pregnant one good tube would be good enough. Whether or not the scar tissue was caused by BV I’ll never know for sure. And since I don’t have kids and have never tried to get pregnant I don’t know what effect, if any, all those infections, or having only one good tube, would have on my ability to conceive.

[Briza]

Wouldn't it be great if there were an over the counter test to do at home to test for yeast and BV?

[Katrina]

yes it would be nice to have that at home test. BCQ said something very important...your partner can give you back the infection without ever having any symptoms...so if your struggling get him tested too. Thanks for sharing!

[JaniceB]

When I was diagnosed with this (about a year ago) I was prescribed Flagyl. That seemed to take care of it. I think I may have had it a long time though without knowing it. DX through a routine pap. I think this was actually the time of my first IC symptoms, but I'm not sure, since they seemed to let up after I finished the Flagyl, I figured it was the BV. Then I didn't develop anymore IC symptoms for 6 months, so I'm not sure (maybe I was in an IC remission?). When I had pelvics done again this summer during my IC diagnosis they were negative for BV.

My SIL has had trouble getting rid of it though, to. I think that is pretty common for it to re-occur.

As for yeast infections I have got so I request a diflucan everytime the dr writes a prescription for any antibiotic. Otherwise I get a really bad one, every time.

[Cheries]

I had a lot of problems with BV following a decline in Estrogen. Once I got that treated, I got rid of the BV most of the time. You may want to get your hormones checked, even if you are young. I had been through it all, even having my husband repeatedly treated. What concerned me and made me realize it had to do with my own body was the question of "why all of a sudden after 15 years of marriage would I start getting these?" They are extremely painful and flared my IC to beyond tolerance levels. I would say I am 75-80% better than I was. Oh, also watch out for creams and the like as you can be sensitive to the proplyn glycol and get an allergic reaction or contact irritation to that. I was basically told that we all have bacteria constantly but that it just over multiplies for some reason. My reason was loss of estrogen.

[ICNDonna]

I totally agree that your partner should be checked if you're getting repeated infections. It's possible to be a carrier with no symptoms.

Donna

[extrasharp]

Fishy smell sounds like gardnernella. I'm on Flagyl right now for the burning.