Vaginal Discharge

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Vaginal Discharge: Home Care & Treatment

To help prevent and treat vaginal discharge:

• Keep your genital area clean and dry.
• Avoid douching. While many women feel cleaner if they douche after menstruation or intercourse, it may actually worsen vaginal discharge because it removes healthy bacteria lining the vagina that are there to help protect you from infection.
• Use an over-the-counter cream or vaginal suppository, like miconazole (Monistat) or clotrimazole (Gyne-Lotrimin), IF you know that you have a yeast infection.
• Try to reduce stress.
• Eat yogurt with live cultures or take Lactobacillus acidophilus tablets when on antibiotics to try to avoid a yeast infection.
• Use condoms to avoid catching or spreading sexually transmitted diseases.
• Keep your blood sugars under good control if you have diabetes.

If the discharge is caused by a sexually transmitted disease, your sexual partner (or partners) must be treated as well, even if they have no symptoms. Many organisms can harbor themselves without producing symptoms. Failure of partners to accept treatment can cause continual reinfection which may, if not taken care of, lead to serious problem like infertility.