A Quick Remedy for Bacterial Vaginosis

A health article fromYour Health Online the A to Z directory of dealing with Health Problems & nutritional Self Care Strategies

As with any infection, your body has natural defenses set up to stand against any attack and most times your body manages to keep things well. Your skin is your first line of defense and in the vagina, the skin is specialized in that it has the ability to slough off slippery moist mucus all of the time.

This mucus does several things. Obviously, it acts to wash away and keep the area free of whatever might be there. The mucus cells continue to secrete mucus which ends up in your underwear as a discharge.

Most of the time this discharge is non offensive. But as noted in an earlier discussion, with bacterial vaginosis, it begins to smell foul. This is because the mucus contains the dead bacteria and also if you have had sexual relations, the semen will combine with your mucus and create an even more offensive smelling discharge.

Even if you use a pad and change it often, the smelly discharge will not go away. Now, here is where you can start to use intervention. Aside from the advice to use clean underwear daily and bathe regularly, you can do medical douching.

Normally it isn’t advised to use douching for everyday means. The vagina is a very sensitive area and is designed to take care of itself. The mucus works well to do its own “washing and rinsing” even after regular intercourse or when other things might have entered into the vagina. But for acute situations, as with bacterial vaginosis, it's fine to use douching for the short course of treatment.

You can make up one of several douching solutions. A popular douche is to make goldenseal tea with garlic (can be crushed, steeped in the hot tea and strained). Although garlic seems smelly in itself, the garlic actually kills the bad bacteria. So both the bad bacteria and the bad smell go away with a garlic and goldenseal douche.

Another douche solution can be made up of colloidal silver and warm water. Some say that a mild blend of hydrogen peroxide in warm water helps too, but not to use it more than once a day. Follow a garlic, goldenseal or hydrogen peroxide douche with something soothing like plain yogurt to bring friendly bacteria back into the vagina.

Gently pat dry with a clean wash cloth (which you will then toss in the laundry). Allow yourself to dry fairly well before resuming your daily schedule.

Douching with garlic as well as other antibiotic solutions works the same way as the creams do that your doctor gives you to get rid of bacterial vaginosis. But be forewarned that this only solve the topical problem of bacterial vaginosis. The real cure is far more involved. We will touch on permanent cures in future lessons.