This isn’t a request for advice since I have no symptoms, just curiousity about something I’ve never experienced myself. (yet. knock on wood)
I’ve read that taking antibiotics often leads to a yeast infection, though I’m a bit fuzzy on how good bacteria keeps a fungus from invading you… How long after taking antibiotics does that generally happen? Within a couple of days, or are we talking about a week or month later?
And how much does the length of the course of antibiotics affect things? Some of the women who were complaining in one article had taken them for 30 to 90 days, which seems kind of unusual.
Good bacteria keep the pH of mucus membranes at a place that yeast don’t like, and when the bacteria are killed off the pH changes to something more hospitable to the yeast. That’s how antibiotics can cause yeast infections.
The thing about yeast infections is that they come on slowly over time. Some people may begin to feel the infection within only a few days, but I can easily believe a 30-day lag between the good bacteria being killed off, and noticeable symptoms. It makes yeast infections hard to treat, because often by the time you know you have one, it’s so bad that the recovery takes two or three weeks–and/or two or three packages of OTC medicine.
The antibiotics kill your “friendly” gut bacteria. This often occurs right near the end of the drug regime. Some bad LT infections do have an extended course.
Taking probiotics almost always seems to stay this off.
Some travel medicine plans involve long-term antibiotic use. I took antibiotics for months as an anti-malarial prophylaxis during one of my stays in India.
I have had the cause-and-effect within several days of starting antibiotics. Some years back, when I was on antibiotics for an extended time (A month or so) I basically picked up 1-2 packages of Monistat at the same time I got each refill.
To the best of my knowledge, we all have a certain colonization of the candida microorganisms, which are kept in check by normal flora (and/or normal PH). When an antiobiotic or something else upsets the normal balance, the candida sees it as an opportunity to par-tay. :mad:.
It’s especially fun when you’re on prednisone as well (as an asthmatic, this is a fairly common scenario). :eek::smack:.
I can vouch for this. I used to get yeast infections every time I took antibiotics, to the point where I started asking my doctor to give me a prescription for Diflucan along with the antibiotics. Then someone tipped me off about interspersing my antibiotics dosage with acidophilus pills. I have never had a yeast infection since.
I have been exceedingly fortunate to have never had a yeast infection. Not even once. Yes, I’ve taken antibiotics, at one point for three months (stubborn bacterial infection). No, they don’t give me diarrhea, either. Either my native body flora is antibiotic resistant or I have some fluky biochemistry or my immune system (which is a bit overactive with the allergies) manages to nip these things in the bud.
So it’s possible that if you haven’t had one yet you might never.
So… antibiotics to yeast infections might be “matter of days” to “never”, depending on person and circumstances
In some cases, where the person reports immediate yeast infection, they might have already had said yeast infection while ill with something else.
I take acidophilus on a semi-regular basis, and started that again half a day after I ended the five day course of antibiotics I was taking earlier this week. I hesitated to take it while I was on the antibiotics, though, because almost as many health sites suggest you don’t as suggest you do.
I suppose it’s possible that I’ll never get a yeast infection, but my optimism is a bit low considering I’d never gotten a bladder infection until last week, either. It’d be nice if the uti is a one-time thing for me like it has been for my 50-something mom.
For years, I couldn’t take antibiotics without a resulting yeast infection starting within a week. It’s right on my chart at the doctors office to write a diflucan script along with any antibiotic script.
I noticed the last few rounds of antibiotics haven’t had the same effect, I filled the diflucan and never had the slightest symptom of a yeast infection and wound up not needing it. I’ve always been a big yogurt fan, but never tried taking any pro biotic supplements specifically.
The only change I can think of between then and now is a period where I was on a maintenance dosage of antibiotics for 6 months and maybe my body just got used to the changed pH or something.
This is untrue. Antibiotics do not discriminate against “good” or “bad” bacteria. What makes an antibiotic an antibiotic is that it is a drug that selectively kills Prokaryote cells, which bacteria are a part of. The main selectivity in antibiotics is if it affects gram positive or gram negative bacteria, not “good” or “bad”
OP: The cause of yeast infections during antibiotic use is that the antibiotics kill a lot of the bacteria, which throws the microorganism mix into imbalance. The different species of microorganisms that colonize the human body then start growing at different rates. In yeast infections, the antibiotics don’t kill fungus cells (which yeast is), so they take over all the space left vacant by the dead bacteria.
If you come down with a yeast infection or not depends on the person, and their unique mixture of microorganisms, and the strength and/or duration of the antibiotics. Probiotics help replenish the microorganisms that are not pathogenic and help keep the “bad” bacteria and yeast in control.
I wasn’t suggesting that antibiotics discriminate between good and bad bacteria, but rather that antimalarials discriminate between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Not so?
Guess I should have said most prophylaxis drugs won’t affect any bacteria.
While Malaria is caused my an eukaryote, the is some overlap between antimicrobial agents. The main agents that are used in prophylaxis against malaria is Quinine, synthetic agents based off of it, and antibiotics that have shown effectiveness, mainly Doxycyline and Sulfamethoxazole & Trimethoprim (Bactrim). If someone is taking those two antibiotics as a prophylactic they could get a yeast infection.
Ignoring prophylactic drugs for other conditions besides malaria, the majority of drugs might not affect bacteria, but the majority of prescriptions probably would. Doxycyline and SMX-TMP are the most common of the drugs used as malarial prophylactics due to their cost and effectiveness.
Yes, that’s what she took. Seriously, I was initially a little surprised that somebody would infer that a poster talking about their experiences regarding antibiotics and yeast infections might be male, but on googling I found that men can actually get yeast infections too.
But how common is that? When I see somebody talking about experiences with yeast infections I just automatically assume they’re talking about Candidal vulvovaginitis, i.e., a vaginal yeast infection. How likely am I to be wrong about that?
My husband has had tremendous problems with yeast infections, sometimes 5-6 in a single year due to urological problems linked to his birth defect. (fortunately, he’s been nearly six months without one at this point, he had a little surgery which seems to have eliminated a sort of nugget of infection not responding to anti-fungals). At one point I was tested, to see if I might be an asymptomatic carrier (I’m not). Really, it’s all the more remarkable I’ve never had one given I live with and have sex with someone who gets them so often (of course, we take precautions regarding spread of that sort of thing when we’re aware he has an infection, but sometimes you don’t know until a day or two after).
Of course, men don’t get vaginal infections, but yeast, even that normally found in a vagina, can grow elsewhere given a moist, damp environment and an individual’s susceptibility.
Seriously, I was initially a little surprised that somebody would infer that a poster talking about their experiences regarding antibiotics and yeast infections might be male, but on googling I found that men can actually get yeast infections too.