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Common Causes Of Recurring Vaginal Yeast Infections

Yeast infections are incredibly common.

Yeast is a kind of fungus that occurs naturally throughout your body. Your vagina has a delicate and useful balance of yeast and bacteria. You can get a yeast infection when that balance is thrown out of whack.

If you find you are getting yeast infections frequently, more than four times a year, you may want to consider some of these possible reasons in addition to talking to your doctor.

Birth control pills, hormone replacement therapy, and pregnancy can increase the amount of estrogen in your body. And high levels of estrogen can cause recurring yeast infections. If you're on birth control or HRT, talk to your doctor about adjusting your dose.

Anything with an added fragrance like soap, bubble bath, clothes detergent, feminine deodorants, or scented tampons and pads can irritate delicate skin. Avoid fragrances in direct contact with your vulva.

Soap and douches can disrupt the pH balance of your vagina and kill off the beneficial bacteria you need. Wash yourself with warm water only and skip the douche. Your body was built to clean itself naturally.

Spending too much time in wet swimsuits or sweaty gym clothes can create warm, moist conditions that can cause yeast to grow too fast.

Frequent yeast infections can be an indicator of other health conditions like diabetes or HIV/AIDS. A full workup by your doctor can help you rule them out if you are concerned.

Yeast infections are not considered sexually transmitted infections because you can get one without having sex, but it is possible to get one from your partner. If they have symptoms, they should be checked.

A yeast infection can be uncomfortable and inconvenient. Talk to your doctor if they seem frequent, which will help you pinpoint the cause and come up with a treatment plan. ","publisher":"WebMD Video"} ]]>

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SPEAKER

Yeast infections are incredibly common.

If you find you are getting yeast infections frequently, more than four times a year, you may want to consider some of these possible reasons in addition to talking to your doctor.

Spending too much time in wet swimsuits or sweaty gym clothes can create warm, moist conditions that can cause yeast to grow too fast.

Frequent yeast infections can be an indicator of other health conditions like diabetes or HIV/AIDS. A full workup by your doctor can help you rule them out if you are concerned.

A yeast infection can be uncomfortable and inconvenient. Talk to your doctor if they seem frequent, which will help you pinpoint the cause and come up with a treatment plan.

How To Treat Recurring Menopausal Yeast Infections

The most common cause for vaginal yeast infections is inflammation of the vulva or vagina from Candida, which is a yeast.

Women around the time of menopause can experience an increase in vaginal yeast infections. Because the drop in estrogen, that is what menopause is, can cause a thinning of the vaginal tissue and a loss of elasticity which provides almost a perfect environment for yeast to overgrow.

We define recurrent vaginal yeast infections as four or more yeast infections in a calendar year. People who have yeast infections, and certainly with recurrent yeast infections, are often very frustrated. It can interfere with their quality of life, with their sexual function. So we treat vaginal yeast infections typically with either a single dose of an oral anti-Candida medication or with over-the-counter topical medications that do not require a prescription.

Most people prefer the single dose prescription medication that is an antifungal against candida to treat vaginal yeast infections. But the over-the-counter topicals are no less effective, they're just a little messy and cumbersome.

Some of the behavioral modifications that may improve the likelihood of getting a vaginal yeast infection are avoiding tight fitting clothing, avoiding wearing pantyliners, getting out of wet clothing as soon as possible, and taking a probiotic, particularly if you're on antibiotics for some other reason, and avoiding high sugar foods and drinks.

I think in some women, topical estrogen can help reduce the chance of vaginal yeast infections. I tell my patients it's important to see a specialist, particularly a gynecologist, if they have recurrent vaginal yeast infections or if they have complicated yeast infections. Such that they are having severe pains, severe symptoms, skin irritation, and/or if they have some other immune compromised situation that would warrant a shift in their treatment.

Sometimes we self treat with over the counter medications, but we're actually treating the wrong thing. So it may not be that you have a recurrent candida infection, you may have something else altogether. So it's important to check in with your medical provider when you have questions or are unsure.

I just want to relay to my patients when I see them for these things that treating vaginitis is possible. We just need to troubleshoot it. And that with treatment, they can feel more comfortable, being less pain, have less discomfort, and that their self-image and even their sexual function can improve. ","publisher":"WebMD Video"} ]]>

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LUCY MCBRIDE

The most common cause for vaginal yeast infections is inflammation of the vulva or vagina from Candida, which is a yeast.

Winning The Battle Against Thrush

Start most women off on the subject of vaginal thrush, and they'll tell you that it can be one of the most irritating and troublesome conditions that a woman can experience.

And although some women endure only the odd bout, the lives of others are blighted by its stubborn recurrence.

The symptoms of thrush include vaginal itching, a thick, white discharge, swelling of the vulva, pain or soreness during intercourse and the need to urinate more often than usual, while some women also complain of extreme fatigue, feelings of depression and irritability, skin rashes, digestive problems and headaches.

Many cases of thrush are caused by the excessive growth of the Candida albicans fungus, a micro-organism that is commonly found on the skin and in the mouth, digestive tract and vagina, but whose numbers are normally kept at an undisruptive level by harmless bacteria.

Sometimes, however, the vagina can become overloaded with C. Albicans, prompting the symptoms of thrush to kick in, particularly after a course of antibiotics has zapped some of your body's good, defensive bacteria along with their unwanted pathogenic counterparts, after sex, during pregnancy or when you're on the pill (when the vagina's hormonal environment changes), or when your immune system is weak, perhaps following an illness.

The nutritional treatment of thrush is a controversial subject. Because some doctors, for example, are sceptical that C. Albicans can cause any adverse symptoms, they dismiss the notion of tackling it with a special diet.

As a nutritional practitioner who has treated a large number of women whose symptoms have been eased by a diet designed to decrease the growth of the culprit fungus, however, I have to disagree.

So what can you do to banish thrush? Speaking from experience, I'd recommend that you tackle two core issues: firstly, increasing the levels of C. Albicans-combating, probiotic bacteria within your body, and, secondly, starving the C. Albicans bacteria of their main sources of food, namely sugar and alcohol.

Probiotic bifido or lactobacilli bacteria, which are important components of the vagina's normal bacterial population, produce acids and antibiotics that make it hard for other micro-organisms, C. Albicans included, to thrive.

Although eating, or coating the vagina with, live yoghurt containing these good bacteria can be quite helpful in tackling thrush, it is not as effective as using a pessary containing either lactobacilli or an oligofructose prebiotic, which acts as both a cure and a preventative (consult your doctor about these treatments, as well as about taking a course of capryllic acid, a natural anti-fungal substance).

Together with including pro- or prebiotic bacteria in your daily routine (and I'd anyway recommend having a small pot of live yoghurt a day to maintain the health of your gut), try to avoid foods that contain high concentrations of sugar, notably such blatantly sweet products as cane sugar, honey, syrup, sweet drinks, cakes, biscuits and chocolate, and instead boost your intake of fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, lean proteins, oats, wholemeal bread, pasta, potatoes and rice.

Avoid alcohol for a few weeks, too, because it not only increases the concentration of sugar in the urine, so feeding the bad bacteria, but also contains yeast.

Because the evidence that thrush can be cured by avoiding yeast-containing foods (bread, Marmite, blue cheeses and mushrooms, for instance) is inconclusive, however, I'd advise simply minimising your intake of these and instead focusing on cutting sugary foods from your diet.

These twin strategies aside, remember that it's important to keep your immune system strong by having a well-balanced diet that includes oily fish (such as sardines, tuna, salmon, herrings and mackerel), studies also having indicated that the eicosapentaenoic acid that they contain seems to reduce inflammation and boost the body's immunity.

Finally, because garlic contains allicin, a potent combatant in the battle against yeast infections, try to have a couple of small cloves of raw or cooked garlic a day.

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RECIPE: New potatoes and garlic baked in a parcel

Each parcel serves 1 person

4 to 6 new potatoes, weighing about 100g in total

5 cloves garlic, unpeeled

5cm piece of lemon grass, peeled (optional)

small bunch thyme

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

Wash the potatoes, but leave their skins on. If they measure 2.5cm or less in width, leave them whole, otherwise cut them into roughly equal-sized pieces.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Take a sheet of baking paper measuring approximately 28 x 48cm and fold it in half. Now open up the paper and place the potatoes on the lower half. Add the garlic, lemon grass (if you are using it), thyme, a little sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper and drizzle over the olive oil.

Fold the top section of the baking paper over the potato mixture and then tuck in and twist the edges to make a sealed parcel.

Place the potato parcels in the oven and bake them for 30 minutes. Remove the parcels from the oven, transfer them to serving plates and serve them immediately, while scented steam is still wafting from them.

You can also bake young carrots, leeks, beans and beetroots in this way, but remember that you will need to adjust the cooking times to suit their size.

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