The Relationship Between PID and BV

At first when most women hear that there’s a relationship between Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) and bacterial vaginosis (BV), they are shocked.

“PID!!?” they ask.

“I didn’t know it was that bad!”

Pelvic inflammatory disease is definitely not something that you want to have, ever!

There’s a lot of pain in the entire abdominal area, pain that can double you over and make you not want to get out of bed except to go to the hospital. The pain can be accompanied by a fever.

The pain is from all the inflammation that is occurring in the uterus, fallopian tubes, and/or ovaries. These are your female organs and if the inflammation progresses, it can lead to scar formation with adhesions. Once you have adhesions, it becomes difficult to get pregnant and also if you do get pregnant, it’s possible that the adhesions can interfere with the developing fetus and possibly cost you your life.

So Pelvic Inflammatory Disease is no laughing matter and it’s nothing to brush off.

The reason why all that inflammation is there in the first place is that there is an infection – a bacterial infection, viral infection, fungal infection, parasitic infection or a sexually transmitted disease. Gonorrhea is associated with a high percentage of those with PID. In one study, up to 40% of those with untreated gonorrhea and Chlamydia developed PID.

PID can occur after sex, after giving birth, after an abortion, or even just because you had an IUD. PID can be silent as well as cause its victim a lot of pain; it’s possible that you didn’t even know you had it but the scarring nevertheless is still there to prove it.

The sad news is that 100,000 women become infertile each year because they develop pelvic inflammatory disease.

Pelvic inflammatory disease can also result from an infection that technically isn’t an infection: from having bacterial vaginosis or BV.

Bacterial vaginosis results when the pH of the vagina and the bacterial flora in the vagina is out of balance. The predominant bacteria in the vaginal flora is Lactobacillus, the same bacteria that is found in yogurt. When the bacterial flora are out of balance, the number of Lactobacillus bacteria decreases to a very low level and sometimes that number can approach zero. When this happens, the other bacteria that reside in the vagina will then increase their numbers. The problem with this is that when they do, they begin to cause a discharge, disease, or a smell. When they increase to a high enough number, then it’s possible for pelvic inflammatory disease to result.

The bottom line is that the longer you have bacterial vaginosis, the more you are at risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease. What this means to you is that you must learn to recognize the signs of BV in your own body. At the first little sign, it’s important to do something about it, such as eat yogurt, take probiotics capsules, do a yogurt douche, or apple cider vinegar bath.

If you feel that it’s essential for you to schedule an appointment with your ob-gyn, then do so. Intuition won’t tell you to do something unless there’s a reason. It could be that you do have another co-existing infection that also needs to be cleared up.

So remember, at the least little sign of something wrong, act. Take positive steps. Protect your uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries.

Protect your unborn!