Are doctors/nurses supposed to check for bacterial vaginosis at the yearly?
Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at
3:41 pm
I read it can have no symptoms..and my nurse practioner told me she did not check because there were no visual signs. Is this normal they don’t test for this automatically since it can cause infertility?
Filed under: Bacterial Vaginosis Symptoms
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I have never had this checked. You need to come in with symptoms of it before they will check it out. If you are worried then I would just tell you want to be checked, if you want it done, they can’t say no. Good luck and hope everything comes out ok!
I’ve never been checked for that at my annual exam, even when I’ve asked for STD screenings. It’s a really, really smelly infection, so it’s not likely to be missed during your annual exam.
They don’t automatically check for it unless there’s a reason to. I would think that you’d have symptoms if you had it bad enough that it was causing infertility. A mild case won’t cause infertility. If your doctor sees a suspicious discharge when they do the pelvic exam, they’ll do a smear and test it and let you know right away if you have it or not. If you have a moderate-severe case, you’ll have some odor. A good test for it is to wash your genital area with real soap. The combination of bacterial vaginosis and soap causes a very strong fishy odor.
It’s easily treated with antibiotics, by the way.