How often is a vaginitis caused by both yeast and bacteria?
It is uncommon to have simultaneous infection with both candida (yeast) and bacteria giving a bacterial vaginosis. It is thought that some of the substances (amines) produced by bacterial vaginosis actually inhibit yeast growth and that is why they do not occur together very often (1). When women with active yeast infections are cultured for other bacteria, there are also much less of certain bacteria (peptostreptococcus species and anaerobic gram-positive cocci and/or bacilli) that would tend to be associated with bacterial vaginosis (2). Therefore the environments of yeast vaginitis and bacterial vaginitis are substantially different and thus they do not often occur together. Nothing is an absolute in medicine however, and yeast vaginitis can occur along with bacterial vaginosis, especially recurrent bacterial infections (3). Even the situation of taking antibiotics for a bacterial vaginosis and a subsequent yeast vaginitis may be explained by the particular antibiotic used to treat
