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Vaginal Strep in a Non Pregnant Woman
Hi, I had been having lots of itching, burning and a brownish discharge for two weeks after a fun sex filled weekend with a boyfriend whom I only see every two months or so. This happens often and I have always treated it as a possible yeast infeciton. This time it didn't go away and so I saw my ob/gyn. She took a culture and found strep B, which has nothing to do with Strep A that creates strep throat. She said she could give me antibiotics to make it go away but then I would get a yeast infeciton from the antibiotics and then we'd have to use another cream etc. She said just to let it ride it's course. Now it's been three and ahalf weeks and it's better but not all healed. Does anyone have any ideas about treating this or preventing this? Every article on the internet has to do with Strep B in prenatal women (when it is very dangerous for the baby) and nothing about Strep B for regular women in their 40's like me :) Thanks, I'd love to hear from anyone who has ever been treated for this disease or any doctors out there.
Hi everyone. I posted back in March but I have been following the posts ever since and wanted to update everyone on my progress, which I don't really know that I would call it progress. I kinda gave up on antibiotics. Seems that no matter what I take it never completely goes away. Antibiotics will knock out the itching and burning when it flares up but the white pasty discharge never goes away. I just had another flare up and went back to the dr and she saw BV. Usually they will find either yeast or bv along with the strep. She said when my culture comes back if it shows strep again, which I'm sure it will, they are going to do Gintin Violet (not exactly sure of the spelling). It is a dye that they paint all over in the vagina that kills EVERYTHING, even Strep B. Basically wipes the slate clean. But the most important thing about this is establishing the GOOD flora before all the other bad bacteria set in again. Because as some of you may know, strep b is a natural bacteria in some of us, about 50% of us from what I understand. It lives in our gut and bowels. The problem arises when the strep takes over because the good bacteria was diminished at some point. So, if the good flora is not reestablished after killing the strep, whether by antibiotics or in my case Gintin Violet the strep will migrate back into the vagina via the bowels and take over again. My doctor told me the best way to do this is by taking acidophilus orally or acidophilus suppositories and to start before the procedure to try to build it up definitely continue after the procedure probably for the rest of my life. For me I'm can pinpoint exactly when my problems started. I had a minor in office procedure done to remove some inflammed hymen lining in my vagina. I had stitches and got a very bad bacterial infection. So I was given Clindesse. As some of you may know Clindesse is a very strong vaginal antibiotic that wipes out all bacterias. But Strep B is very resistant to most antibiotics. So, the strep took over and I have not been able to reestablish my good flora since. This was May 2008! Ever since then I have been battling BV, Yeast, and this awful antibiotic resistant strep! I have read numerous times that antibiotics usually will not rid someone of Strep B completely and as soon as antibiotics are stopped the Strep B will flourish again. I also had a hysterectomy in 2006 at 26 years old. I still have 1 ovary but if the estrogen has dropped this plays a critical role in the reestablishment of lactic acid producing flora. The good bacteria thrive on an estrogen rich vaginal mucosa. They feed on it and estrogen also lowers the PH of the vagina which good flora thrive in. They good flora also produce and acidic environment which keeps ph low. Bad bacterias can not thrive in low ph. My dr said that she has seen strep B in a low ph but for the most part someone suffering from an overabundance of Strep B will show a high ph. I have done a lot of research on probiotics and the best ones I've found are those that are refrigerated and include Ultimate Flora Vaginal Support by Renew Life and Fem-dophilus. They focus on the bacterias that normally live in the vagina. I hope what little information I have learned about Strep B will help others. I don't know if this will work for me or you. But it seems most logical to me. It's not all about trying to kill the strep. You have to understand why it's taking over in the first place and correct that before you will see improvements.
I'm so happy I happened upon this site.
When I was 18, I was diagnosed with group B strep. After my round of amoxicillian and subsequent treatment for a slight yeast infection, I was better. But now, I'm having similar symptoms again. Rather than go back to the doctor and get more pills to take, I'm going to try some of the more natural cures that were suggested.
I'm also super happy to know that this isn't as rare as I thought it was.
Thanks, everyone!
When I was 18, I was diagnosed with group B strep. After my round of amoxicillian and subsequent treatment for a slight yeast infection, I was better. But now, I'm having similar symptoms again. Rather than go back to the doctor and get more pills to take, I'm going to try some of the more natural cures that were suggested.
I'm also super happy to know that this isn't as rare as I thought it was.
Thanks, everyone!
I am so happy to come upon this site today. I was recently told by my gyn that I have Strep B. My trouble began with food poisoning a couple of years ago. My intestenal track had not been the same since. Then I started having vaginal redness and a slight milky white discharge that seemed to cause the vaginal redness. When I first saw my gyn in Oct. for this problem he found E-coli. I was given Bactrum for 5 days but it still was not cleared up. So I went back to the gyn and he informed me the e-coli was gone but Strep B showed up now. He gave the Clindamycin vaginal cream for the Strep B and I finished that a couple of weeks ago and it still has not gone away. Had a series of Blood tests done and a stool sample. Blood tests were all normal but the stool sample came back with C-diff in my intestenal track. The medications I took allowed for all the bad bacteria to grow. I was then put on Alinia medication for the C-diff which has helped a great deal and I thought the Strep B would be gone. But the redness returned yesterday along with the discharge. I called my holistic M.D. and He told me to get Flora Myces because all of my good bacteria most likely is gone and it is just as effective as some of the antibiotics. I started taking it today. Will let you know it if works.
im 16 and i have been having strep b symptoms i guess for like 6-8 months now. it all started when i first has sex. now everytime i have sex or get off my period its back. i have tried anti biotics, creams, these torpedo shaped things and none of them have worked. and as i looked up strep b all i found was stuff bout having it when ur pregnant. i just wanted to say thanks for posting all ur experiences on here and what u did. i was really gettin scared. but now my mom will take me to a gnocologyst and get this all fixed. thanks!
I was first diagnosed with strep B when I was pregnant with my first child (I had had 5 miscarriages) at age 41. Since I am severely allergic to penicillin, they could not treat it, so cesearean was my only option. The dr would not deliver through the vaginal canal as it would endanger the baby's life. I was not treated after I gave birth, and neither was my daughter. She is now 14 and from an early age she was always very sick with croup and fever and they missed the diagnosis of asthma (didn't diagnose her until she was 13, and only because I was so fed up with her constantly being told she had sinusitis and given one antibiotic after another). She saw a pulmonologist and she not only had asthma, but also severe acid reflux that caused vocal cord dysfunction (larynegeal reflux). She has a weakened immune system when tested by an allergist/immunologist and the she has no antibodies for strep B!
The interesting things is that neither of us ever had strep A (regular strep - me as a child or her up to now). Strep A has nothing to do with Strep B on all fronts.
Over the years I was diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis and nothing really cured it. For the past 2 years, I've been plagued with strep B, however, my symptoms are a foul odor when I urinate. My urine burns as well. I was so convinced it might be a urine infection which is how I stumbled upon the strep B. However, staph aureus also showed up. How I got that I don't know. I haven't had sex since 1998 as my husband and I are divorced and I don't date. My gynecologist ordered 3 days of cleocin ovules, and then another round to be on the safe side. The odor completely disappeared as did the burning. I felt great. I was treated for this in the spring of 09.
However, about 2 months ago, the symptoms reappeared. I was recently tested again, and I'm sure that both are back. I have no itching and very little discharge. Even though I started menopause 10 years ago, and I never used any hormones, I still feel I'm lubricated enough. On the last exam though, I had such pain when the gyney inserted the speculum (I've had that kind of pain in the vaginal tract for over 15 years, and this gynecologist I have now, is the only one who could examine me and not cause pain - she used a pediatric speculum). She said that the lining of my vagina was so painfully thin and atrophied. In testing all my hormones, she found I am basically depleted. I am not a candidate for bioidentical hormones as 10 years is too late to start, and I also developed hypertension this past summer due to a possible blocked renal artery (I think if I had started hormones when I first stopped my period 10 years ago, perhaps my hypertension and cholesterol issues would not have occurred).
I also developed a tumor on my adrenal gland, a cyst in my breast which turned out to be a fibroadenoma, and I lost 30lbs when I was diagnosed with the hypertension. I cannot take any meds as they all elevate my bp. I learned a lot about all that over the past 6 months, and my levels of vit D3 also dropped significantly (I am now taking 2000 units a day to increase the levels). It is all mind boggling that women have so many things to worry about and so much can go wrong when menopause starts. To add to it, I started getting rheumatological symptoms. I had to ask my internist to do a rheumatoid panel (heaven forbid he would have thought about it himself; I no longer go to him by the way) and it showed an elevated ANA level and sjogren's B. Apparentely, if you have sjogren's AB or B, you can have dyspareunia (painful intercourse or painful vaginal tract due to dryness since sjogren's dries up saliva (I had my salivary gland taken out in 1990 way before i even knew I had this disease, because I developed a tumor) and dry eye (which I don't have, but I do experience huge cysts in the orbit of my eye which no one could identify - no eye dr, no allergist - it is all from the sjogren's).
So I am now awaiting the results of these newest cultures and blood work and my gynecologist did call the day before christmas eve but I missed her call. Obviously, something showed up. I am concerned about my daughter also having strep B issues as well. I had no hot flashes during menopause. The only symptoms I had were horrific mood swings (worse than PMS and getting worse as we speak but now nothing can be done for that; I'm getting more depressed and anxious and the insomnia never ends - I've never gotten more than 3-4 hours of sleep per night since I started menopause; it's so stressful).
Good luck to all!
The interesting things is that neither of us ever had strep A (regular strep - me as a child or her up to now). Strep A has nothing to do with Strep B on all fronts.
Over the years I was diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis and nothing really cured it. For the past 2 years, I've been plagued with strep B, however, my symptoms are a foul odor when I urinate. My urine burns as well. I was so convinced it might be a urine infection which is how I stumbled upon the strep B. However, staph aureus also showed up. How I got that I don't know. I haven't had sex since 1998 as my husband and I are divorced and I don't date. My gynecologist ordered 3 days of cleocin ovules, and then another round to be on the safe side. The odor completely disappeared as did the burning. I felt great. I was treated for this in the spring of 09.
However, about 2 months ago, the symptoms reappeared. I was recently tested again, and I'm sure that both are back. I have no itching and very little discharge. Even though I started menopause 10 years ago, and I never used any hormones, I still feel I'm lubricated enough. On the last exam though, I had such pain when the gyney inserted the speculum (I've had that kind of pain in the vaginal tract for over 15 years, and this gynecologist I have now, is the only one who could examine me and not cause pain - she used a pediatric speculum). She said that the lining of my vagina was so painfully thin and atrophied. In testing all my hormones, she found I am basically depleted. I am not a candidate for bioidentical hormones as 10 years is too late to start, and I also developed hypertension this past summer due to a possible blocked renal artery (I think if I had started hormones when I first stopped my period 10 years ago, perhaps my hypertension and cholesterol issues would not have occurred).
I also developed a tumor on my adrenal gland, a cyst in my breast which turned out to be a fibroadenoma, and I lost 30lbs when I was diagnosed with the hypertension. I cannot take any meds as they all elevate my bp. I learned a lot about all that over the past 6 months, and my levels of vit D3 also dropped significantly (I am now taking 2000 units a day to increase the levels). It is all mind boggling that women have so many things to worry about and so much can go wrong when menopause starts. To add to it, I started getting rheumatological symptoms. I had to ask my internist to do a rheumatoid panel (heaven forbid he would have thought about it himself; I no longer go to him by the way) and it showed an elevated ANA level and sjogren's B. Apparentely, if you have sjogren's AB or B, you can have dyspareunia (painful intercourse or painful vaginal tract due to dryness since sjogren's dries up saliva (I had my salivary gland taken out in 1990 way before i even knew I had this disease, because I developed a tumor) and dry eye (which I don't have, but I do experience huge cysts in the orbit of my eye which no one could identify - no eye dr, no allergist - it is all from the sjogren's).
So I am now awaiting the results of these newest cultures and blood work and my gynecologist did call the day before christmas eve but I missed her call. Obviously, something showed up. I am concerned about my daughter also having strep B issues as well. I had no hot flashes during menopause. The only symptoms I had were horrific mood swings (worse than PMS and getting worse as we speak but now nothing can be done for that; I'm getting more depressed and anxious and the insomnia never ends - I've never gotten more than 3-4 hours of sleep per night since I started menopause; it's so stressful).
Good luck to all!
I agree with the comment of why we might get strep, because of the lack of good bacteria. I believe BV medications might cause strep to become out of control. These medications to my understanding kill most bacteria, but not STREP and allow this bacteria to become out of control in a person who carries this bacteria. I personally take acidophilus everyday and did so prior to my diagnosis of strep B. To my knowledge I have not had a return of strep B. I believe I am perimenopausal at 45 years old and notice vaginal irritations here and there, MAYBE presence of BV from time to time after some periods. Not sure, I was told I had excessive normal discharge after being treated for strep B. I really do not want to take these BV medications again, only if absolutely necessary. Have not had symptoms that I feel need to be treated. Still no Strep B noticed and without external problems. I thought for a long time (years) that I had an allergy to feminine pads but after treatment for strep B, I realized there is no allergy. I do not have to use prescribed vaginal creams any longer on my periods. Thank God! This is my seond post for any one interested.
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