Are bacterial vagionosis and yeast infection somehow related or similar?

What is the difference between bacterial vaginosis and yeast infection?

The main difference between bacterial vaginosis and yeast infection is that the former is caused by bacterial overgrowth in the vagina, while the latter is caused by yeast overgrowth in the infected area, such as the vagina (women), penis (men), nail, foot and other parts of the skin. BV gives out a foul, fishy odor and thin vaginal discharge. Yeast infection in the vagina gives out a thick, cottage cheese-like discharge but without any smell.

A healthy female human body needs to maintain a reserve of good, helpful bacteria in their vagina, as well as, a healthy human body (male or female) need to maintain a healthy share of good, helping yeast inside their body (including the vagina, for females). Note that, there are millions and millions of bacteria in your body that help you remain healthy, as well as, make sure that help you in maintaining the yeast balance.

Do not be surprised to learn the following: when you have yeast infection, you need to restore the good bacteria levels inside your body. The good bacteria help keep the yeast at healthy levels, and without them, permanent yeast relief is virtually impossible. Especially for ladies and girls, it is important to understand that the vagina has a natual expectation of pH (acidity) level, and if that is disturbed, the yeast balance inside the vagina is also disturbed.

The natural pH of the vagina is around 3.8 - 4.5, which makes it somewhat acidic. This increases to 5-odd, as the womed grow older. The human vagina hosts a lot of varieties and volumes of healthy bacteria that produce acid. Further, the vagina also maintains its wetness and chemical balance by producing an acidic fuild slowly but on a continuous basis.

This acidity level of the vagina is naturally designed to protect it against germs such as fungi (grammar: plural form of fungus), bacteria and other parasites. Note that, yeast is a type of fungus. When seen even more minutely, the acidity levels are naturally maintained such that the helpful bacteria and yeast, amongst other microbes, survive and live well in a healthy vagina.

Any deviation (practically seen, increase) from this pH level leads to reduced acidity, resulting in death of helpful bacteria and yeast amongst the microbes, and birth and growth of harmful bacteria and yeast. The direct impact of this is vaginal inflamation, also known as vaginitis. Vaginitis is defined as imflammation of the vagina and/or the surrounding area.

As is obvious from the other discussion, the larger umbrella of vaginitis will comprise of multiple root causes. Bacterial vaginosis is one of those. Yeast infection is another. Trichomoniasis is yet another. And none of these are welcome.

The root cause of so many ailments is thus the disturbance of vaginal pH (acidity). If that's maintained well, all is well with the vagina, almost all the time. If not, then it is likely to make you suffer from vaginal issues. Elsewhere in this website, I've gone into details of these issues.

And also note, a few basic things done rightly at home, in the right quantum and right frequencies, and a few avoidances, is all you need for maintaining the vaginal pH (acidity) level. The human body is incredibly flexible and adaptive. Help it with what it needs, and you will do very well indeed! In case of bacterial vagionsis, it is purely natural help that the body needs. And that will elimiate the root cause of BV, keep you free-of-BV forever, never letting it recur (no reoccurrence), and much more effective thatn antibiotics.

If you read this site carefully, antibiotics for BV have direct side-effects (kills healthy bacteria too, that is undesirable for the body), as well as, once their effects go away, if the body does not self-heal the root cause (changed vaginal acidity), then the vaginitis is likely to com back. Why do you think folks taking antibiotics still complain of having recurring BV, in majority of the cases?

A full detail of treating BV with natural methods is presented on our site on this page.