10 Ways to Treat and Avoid Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

Having to go about your grind with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) can be inconvenient and bothersome. Though PID can go away on its own, seeking immediate care and treatment ensures easier and faster recovery.

Check out ten treatments for PID to help you feel better fast.

1. Get Enough Rest

Sufficient bed rest is necessary during the treatment process, especially for more serious cases as this mitigates the abdominal/pelvic pain and helps the body recover from malaise and fever.

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2. Eat a Healthy Diet

Increase your water intake, and eat healthy foods, especially leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, which are rich in calcium. Avoid raw or undercooked food and non-purified water as these may contain bacteria that can exacerbate the infection.

Now more than ever, cleanliness always makes a difference…

3. Maintain Good Personal Hygiene

Having good hygiene steers you clear from infectious diseases. Indian gynecologist Dr. Ramesh Bhosale stresses its importance, since having bad hygiene habits can lead to infections like PID.

But some habits can actually do more harm than good…

4. Say No to Douching

Douching the cooch is a big no-no because it throws off the normal pH balance and it actually pushes bacteria inside, sometimes causing PID. While the vagina cleans itself through normal discharges, one can clean the vulva with warm water and some mild soap.

Here’s one we all need to let go of…

5. Quit Smoking

Cutting down on smoking is beneficial to one’s health. Plus, researchers believe that it lowers the risk of sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia, HPV, and PID.

A quick fix for the pain is just a counter away…

6. Take Your Medications

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Over-the-counter medicines such as aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil), or acetaminophen (Tylenol) are often recommended by doctors to relieve the abdominal, pelvic, and lower back pain caused by PID.

The following option, however, produces a stronger kick…

7. Take Antibiotics

For mild to severe cases of PID. physicians often prescribe and administer oral and parenteral antibiotics like metronidazole, amoxicillin, doxycycline, or ceftriaxone. Side effects, however, might manifest every now and then.

Desperate cases might need tougher measures…

8. Pursue Surgery

Surgery is rarely needed, but it is performed in severe cases of PID, or in ectopic pregnancies, damaged fallopian tubes, and abscesses (laparoscopic surgery).

It’s always better to be safe than sorry!

9. Practice Safe Sex

Safe sex lowers the chances of either partner contracting any sexually transmitted disease. It’s also important to get tested within a 3 or 6-month interval, especially for those who have multiple partners.

This last method always shows 100% efficiency, unlike the rest…

10. Practice Abstinence

Abstaining from sexual activities is the surest way of avoiding STIs. For patients with PID, it’s also recommended that they stop having sex during treatment in order to avoid flare-ups and to let the body recover from the pain.