Gross (but important!) infections you need to know about 😱

UTI

It sounds like the abbreviation for some party school in the midwest, but a UTI (urinary tract infection) is an infection in any part of your urinary system—your kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra.  Not exactly something you want printed on one of those white college baseball caps.  (UTI!  Go Gophers!)

Here is how you know you have a UTI. You’ll feel a never-ending urge to pee and a burning sensation when you finally do.  Ten minutes after peeing you will suddenly go: “Oh my goodness, I need the bathroom again, it is absolutely an emergency,” followed by *Insert sound of one drop of pee falling into the toilet* followed by the thought “that’s so weird I was POSITIVE I really had to go” followed by the one drop of pee thing happening every ten minutes for the rest of the day. If your pee is also stinky and cloudy...then congrats girl, you have a UTI. Which seriously sucks.  

Thankfully, UTIs are very quickly treatable, so head to your doc and have them give you an antibiotic stat!

BV

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) intensifies the classic fishy smell in a vagina and is sometimes associated with discharge, odor, pain, itching and burning.

So the crappy news is - no one knows why some women get BV all the time, and some do not and why it develops in the first place. Thanks, science. But you can reduce your risk of getting BV by avoiding having multiple partners and not douching.  (This is referring to actual douching, not having multiple partners, one of whom is a douche, but seriously don’t do that either because you deserve better, yes? YES.)

P.S. You cannot get BV from toilet seats, bedding or swimming pools. Good to know.   

YEAST INFECTION

You can usually tell the difference between bacterial vaginosis (BV) and a yeast infection by the type of vaginal discharge they produce.

In a yeast infection, the discharge is usually thick, white and odorless. With BV, the discharge is thin, milky white or gray and usually has an unpleasant smell.  It’s fun how in the media women are portrayed as effortlessly flawless, ethereal beings while in real time we’re like “Wow, our bodies are literally just ongoing science experiments.

It can be a bit yucky but heads up, this stuff happens to all of us.  And now you are in the know, you know?