Trichomoniasis

Trichomoniasis is a bacterial sexually transmitted disease that infects the vagina or penis. It cannot cause any bad permanent damage, but if a pregnant woman is infected, it can cause the baby to be premature or underweight. Trichomonas vaginalis is a tiny organism that causes the infection and can be spread through sexual activity. Most women don’t suffer from any symptoms, but when they do, the most common ones are frothy, green or yellow vaginal discharge with strong odor, itching around the vaginal opening, redness and soreness of vagina, buring while urination, and pain in the vagina during sex. Men may suffer from irritation inside the penis, mild discharge, or slight burning after urination or ejaculation. Your doctor will examine patients to see if they have trichomoniasis. They will use a microscope to look for trichomonas in a sample of fluid from the vagina or penis. It can be treated with metronidazole or Flagyl and the patient’s sexual may need to be treated too. The symptoms may last for about a week. It can stop without treatment but they can still pass the disease on to their sexual partner. Woman who has genital inflammation caused by trichomoniasis have greater risks of becoming infected with HIV if she is exposed to it. People who have trichomoniasis should inform people who they have had sexual contact with in the past three months about the infection and they must also be treated. They can’t have sex again until their symptoms have