Ask Dr. Lisa About Yeast Infections

Ask Dr. Lisa About Yeast Infections Dr. Lisa Masterson: Ladies listen up. Three out of four – three out of four, women will suffer form the yeast infection and we’ve got Amanda here. She’s one of them and she e-mails us these questions. She’s such a great sport here today to talk about what’s going on with her so you can all learn about yeast infections at home and thank you so much for being here and sharing us. So the first thing I get to do is I get the place Sherlock Holmes here and kind of really find out, do you have a yeast infection or not. Because yeast infections in and out of themselves aren’t really a problem, other than being irritating. But they can be a red flag if something bad, like diabetes or an immune deficiency. So we want to find out what's going on and bacterial infections which are the other infection we’re trying to discern this from can actually cause miscarriages, can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, pain and infertility. So it’s really important to know if we got a bacterial infection or yeast infection. So what I want you to do is tell me what's being going on with you. Alright and this is what I do in my office everyday, so we’re going to do doctor right here and tell me what's being going on as far. When did it start? Amanda: About a month after I delivered my daughter. I notice it started the itching and the burning and then a lot of the discharge – Dr. Lisa Masterson: So besides not being able to sleep. You’re having itching and discharge and all that which is not good, okay. Amanda: No. Dr. Lisa Masterson: So tell me about the discharge. That’s really important to us. You can tell so much by color. What color was it? Amanda: White and really thick, chunky. Dr. Lisa Masterson: So consistency. Consistency is really important here, just your help me out here. So is it – it was thick and chunky like cottage cheese is what we usually like I say, okay. That’s very typical of yeast, the whitish cottage cheese. Now the other one is smell. That’s actually very very important. Does it have smell or not? Amanda: Sometimes, most of the time but sometimes – Dr. Lisa Masterson: So it doesn’t have odor. Now that’s the only one that doesn’t quite fit with this because yeast really usually doesn’t have an odor. Again we want to determine this because you use anti-fungal to treat the fungal infection which is yeast. We use an anti-bacterial to treat bacterial infections and antivirus to treat, virus but they won’t work on each other if we don’t and I just told you about all those other things that can happen if we don’t get the right diagnosis, right? But, you can figure this out to yourselves, so not just stand there and what up with that. As far as the yeast infection, you can figure this out and go, okay how do I do this? And you know why, because and those guys make fun to me, the self-cleaning of a vagina and itself thing haven’t usually maintains a nice pH that’s acidic, alright. Now yeast infection, if you use this little pH strips and you can get this over the counter. You can tell what pH or vagina is, it’s a great tool. We actually use it in our office. We’ll put it there, we use our test and if it’s acidic, it’s more of the yeast infection. If it's more alkaline or basic, then it’s probably a bacterial infection. And that’s one of the ways that we determine which it is. So, we’re going to try in and get to the back. You want to get to the bottom of this? Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Alright, but we’ll let you do that in private. So let’s get Amanda period to go over this result. I know she’s got to be excited about them. Come on Amanda. I know you want to know what it is, not the jerk side whether not you have a yeast or bacterial infection, right. Okay, but it’s good to know which right. Amanda: Yes. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Because you’ve been dealing with this ever since you know after the birth of your daughter, right? So we talked about how the vagina is acidic then if it's a yeast infection is more acid but if it’s a bacterial infection, it’s more basic or alkaline. And so these pH sticks are very helpful for a woman to be able to distinguish that, you know on their own. So your results were and are you ready? Amanda: Yeah. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Okay. What is that look like? That’s dark, no. So this side is more basic, more alkaline. So you actually have a bacterial infection and this is really communized. You see this all the time even though three out of four women have yeast infection. More women will call it and not get properly treated for bacterial infections, thinking their yeast infections and they can still have those problems with miscarriage, pelvic inflammatory disease, bleeding and infertility. So we need to get you to a Gynecologist ASAP. We’re going to do that, we’re going to get you fixed up, keep this – keep this thing going. Amanda: Alright, thank you. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Okay. So it’s really important to go to your doctor and get an antibiotic because this is actually a bacterial infection, not a yeast.