ion, cervical cultures, and/or analysis of the vaginal discharge. The reproductive organs, including the uterus, will appear inflamed during a pelvic exam. Cervical cultures and/or analyses of vaginal discharge are performed to detect the presence of bacteria known to cause PID. If bacteria are present, a positive diagnosis is made.
Treatment: Antibiotics are the standard treatment for pelvic inflammatory disease. These medications, which are usually taken by mouth, kill the disease-causing microorganism. Severe infections that have spread to the kidneys may require hospitalization and intravenous antibiotics. Commonly prescribed antibiotics include amoxicillin (Amoxil® or Trimox®), nitrofurantoin (Furadantin® or Macrodantin), trimethoprim (Proloprim®), and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim® or Septra®). Symptoms usually start to improve after a few days of treatment.
Patients should take medications exactly as prescribed. Even if symptoms appear to go away, patients should take all of their medication because there may still be bacteria in the body. Stopping medication early may allow the infection to return. Also, stopping medication early may lead to antibiotic resistance. The few remaining bacteria in the body that survive most of the antibiotic therapy are the most difficult to kill. If the bacteria become resistant to treatment, the medications will no longer be effective if taken in the future.
Treating sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as gonorrhea, promptly reduces the risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
Sexual partners of patients who have been diagnosed with PID should be tested and treated for STDs.
Overview: Syphilis is a bacterial infection that initially causes skin sores and rashes to form on the genitals, skin, and mucus membranes. Although this infection is curable, it can be fatal if it is not treated quickly. If left untreated, syphilis may cause permanent damage to other organs, such as the brain and heart.
Syphilis is caused by a bacterium called Treponema pallidum. There are four different stages of syphilis: primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary. The disease is contagious during the primary and secondary stages, and sometimes, the latent period.
Most cases of syphilis are transmitted during oral, anal, or vaginal sex. A patient may also acquire the infection if his/her blood comes into contact with an infected patient's blood. It may also be transmitted through direct contact with an infected person's skin sore. An infected pregnant woman may also transmit the infection onto her fetus during pregnancy. This is because the mother's infected blood passes through the placenta and to the baby.
Treponema pallidum is not able to survive outside of the body. Therefore, the disease cannot be transmitted by sharing clothing, toilet seats, or other objects with an infected person.
Symptoms: Symptoms of syphilis vary with each stage. Initial symptoms during the primary stage typically develop 10 days to three months after exposure. Symptoms commonly include enlarged lymph nodes near the groin and a small painless chancre sore on the part of the body where the bacterium was transmitted. Chancre sores are most common on the tongue, lips, genitals, or rectum. Some patients may develop several sores. If patients do not receive treatment, the symptoms will go away on their own within three to six weeks. However, this does not mean that the infection is gone. In fact, it means that the infection is progressing to the secondary stage.
Symptoms of secondary syphilis develop two to 10 weeks after the first chancre sore appears. Symptoms may include a skin rash that causes small reddish-brown sores, fever, fatigue, general feeling of discomfort, soreness, and aching. If the patient does not receive treatment during this stage, symptoms may go away within a few weeks or repeatedly go away and come back for as long as one year. Even if symptoms are not present, the infection will continue to worsen without treatment.
Some patients experience a period called latent syphilis before terti