Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Fluor vaginalis
It is not the amount that counts but the combination of look, smell and itch — and douching usually makes it worse.
Also known as: discharge · changed discharge · more discharge · different smell
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Discharge is normal and has a job: it keeps the vagina clean and moist. Amount and texture change over the cycle — around ovulation it becomes clearer and stringy, afterwards thicker. It also changes under contraception, in pregnancy and over the years. What makes it notable is not the amount alone but the combination: white, crumbly like cottage cheese and strongly itchy points to a yeast. Thin, grey and with a marked smell, especially after sex, points to a shift in the vaginal flora. Yellow-green and frothy, or with burning and pain on passing water, is a different picture and should be examined, as is discharge with lower abdominal pain or fever. After menopause the lining becomes thinner and drier; then burning rather than discharge is in the foreground. Worth knowing: excessive intimate hygiene, douches and perfumed products disturb the flora and are often part of the problem rather than the solution.
Outside, once a day. No douches, no perfumed products.
Cotton, not too tight, happily none at night — warmth and moisture favour yeast.
An antifungal does not help a flora imbalance — and the other way round.
More than three times a year is a talking point, not a permanent state.
In girls before puberty threadworms are a common and easily missed cause of irritation and discharge.
Sit for ten minutes in hand-warm plain water, once or twice a day, then dab dry gently.
It burns, it smells and it is often taken for bacterial vaginosis. The swab tells the two apart, and the partner is treated as well.
One to four millilitres of discharge a day is normal, more and thinner at mid-cycle, thicker afterwards. The pH is normally below 4.5. Thrush itches and is crumbly at a normal pH; bacterial vaginosis smells fishy and raises the pH above 4.5; trichomonas is frothy. Those three explain almost all cases. After antibiotics the vaginal flora needs two to four weeks to rebuild.
There is no treatment for “discharge” — the particular cause is treated, and the three most common need three different routes: an antifungal for thrush, metronidazole or clindamycin for bacterial vaginosis, metronidazole for both partners with trichomonas. An antifungal in vaginosis does not work and vice versa — that mix-up is the most common reason for no improvement. Vaginal douching worsens the flora measurably.
The yeast picture — usually treated well and quickly.
A shift in the flora; it needs something other than an antifungal.
Then bladder and discharge are looked at together, not separately.
This combination is not waited out — it should be examined promptly.
With repeatedly returning yeast, a look at blood sugar belongs to it.
Fever, sweating and faster breathing clearly raise the need. Drinking enough keeps the mucus thin and the circulation steady — in children and older people it is the most important point of all.
With low levels airway infections occur somewhat more often; correcting a deficiency makes sense, a high single dose during the infection does not act on it.
Needed by the defence cells. For lozenges at the start of a cold there are hints of a slightly shortened duration; at a high dose over months zinc lowers copper.
Antibodies and defence cells are protein. After several days with little appetite it is worth at least keeping the protein up — soup with egg, quark, yoghurt, lentils.
For vaginal flora particular lactobacillus strains are studied, not the word “probiotics”. The studies show fewer relapses after treatment; they are no substitute for having a changed discharge looked at.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
Discharge follows the cycle: around ovulation it becomes clear, stretchy and plentiful, afterwards thicker and less. That change is not a disorder but the cycle itself.
In the second half of the cycle this hormone makes the mucus thick and impassable. Hormonal contraceptives use the same effect — which is why discharge changes lastingly on them.
For dietary measures with changed discharge there is little data. With recurring thrush measuring blood sugar is worthwhile — that is the one established link.
Certain lactobacillus strains are studied for preventing recurrent vaginal infections, with mixed results. With new, smelly or coloured discharge assessment comes first.