You say tomato, I say tomahto…what’s the difference between bacterial vaginosis and bacterial vaginitis? Well, it depends on who you ask. There’s so much conflicting information on the web, it took me a while to suss out the relevant information about bacterial vaginitis and bacterial vaginosis, and even more to sort through the good advice and the bad.
For some people the terms are interchangeable, which can lead to confusion when trying to research treatments on these great interwebs of ours. Also, it’s not accurate.
Medically speaking, vaginitis is an inflammation of the vaginal mucosa. The term is usually used without ‘bacterial’ in front of it, and can actually be used as a catch-all term for a lot of different conditions, all with very different causations.
Types of vaginitis include:
Infections: Includes Candidiasis (yeast infections), bacterial vaginitis, and although it’s less common, sexually transmitted diseases like Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Trich. For pre-pubescent girls, bacterial vaginitis can be caused by streptococcus spp, or by other bacteria or irritants being introduced through improper wiping.
Hormonal: includes vaginitis usually found in postmenopausal or post-partum women. Sometimes it can occur in young girls before puberty. In these situations the estrogen support of the vagina is poor, and hormonal therapy is usually recommended to treat the vaginitis.
Irritation/Allergies: Vaginitis can be caused by allergies to condoms, spermicides, soaps, perfumes, douches, lubricants and semen. It can also be caused by hot tubs, abrasion, tissue, tampons or topical medications. The best treatment for these kinds of vaginitis is to identify exactly which irritant or allergy is causing the problem, and remove it, while using topical treatments to ease the discomfort of the vaginitis.
(Thank you, Wikipedia)
So, if I’m getting this right: bacterial vaginosis is a form of vaginitis, but vaginitis is not exclusively bacterial, can be caused by several different things, and should never be called bacterial vaginitis. I think.
No wonder this thing (I think I’ll stick with calling it bacterial vaginosis) is so hard to treat; people can’t even keep straight what it should be called.
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