Understanding Mycoplasma Genitalium: What You Should Know About The Newest STD

While you may pride yourself on taking the best care of your reproductive health possible by making regular trips to your primary care doctor and your doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, you may not always have all of the facts that you need about certain diseases and conditions. Recently, a new STD has come to light that many people have never heard of, let alone known the symptoms of or how to deal with it. Get to know more about this new STD known as mycoplasma genitalium so that you can know what to ask your gynecologist the next time you go in for a checkup or if you begin to show signs or symptoms of this illness.

What Is Mycoplasma Genitalium? And Why Is It New?

Mycoplasma genitalium is a type of bacterial infection. While this bacterial infection was originally discovered many years ago, doctors and researchers are just beginning to think of this illness as a sexually transmitted disease because of facts regarding sexual histories of the people who receive a diagnosis. According to recent research, people who have had multiple sexual partners in the span of a year, are more commonly diagnosed with mycoplasma genitalium than those who have been sexually inactive or have only had one partner.

What Are The Symptoms of Mycoplasma Genitalium?

One of the reasons that mycoplasma genitalium may be becoming so prevalent is that it can often not cause symptoms, at least not immediately. This is much like chlamydia or gonorrhea in that way. In fact, the diagnosis is often more common in men than women because they show signs more often than women do.

However, there can be noticeable signs that you have been exposed to the bacteria that cause mycoplasma genitalium. Cervicitis is a condition in which your cervix is inflamed due to irritation or infection. Other common STDs can cause this condition as can allergic reactions, and other common bacterial infections (like those that cause urinary tract infections as well). The signs of this condition include pain during intercourse and bleeding in between periods (especially after intercourse), as well as unusual vaginal discharge that may be contain pus or be discolored.

When you have been experiencing chronic cervicitis that is not responding to treatments for the other common causes of cervicitis, it may be due to undiagnosed mycoplasma genitalium. Mycoplasma genitalium can also cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which can result in infertility if not treated.

What Are The Treatments For Mycoplasma Genitalium?

Myscoplasma genitalium can be somewhat challenging to treat because of the specific types of bacteria that tend to cause the infection. Antibiotics are the only direct treatment option for such an infection. However, sometimes the infection is resistant to common antibiotics like azithromycin.

There are a few other antibiotics that may be effective in treating your mycoplasma genitalium if this more common antibiotic does not work for you. And now that doctors and researchers are becoming more aware of the infection and its prevalence among the general population, more studies and research are likely to be performed to come up with more effective treatment for this sexually-transmitted bacterial infection.

Now that you know more about mycoplasma genitalium, you know what to look out for and know that if you are experiencing chronic infections and reproductive issues that you and your gynecologist may need to consider mycoplasma genitalium as the possible cause.

For obstetrics and gynecology services, contact an office such as Bee Ridge Obstetrics Gynecology.