Ever since beginning to work in a pharmacy beside a maternity clinic I see a lot of women for prescriptions each day. The plight of vagina ownership is REAL y’all. I see many a woman with an initial antibiotic prescription for a urinary tract infection, followed by another antibiotic for bacterial vaginosis or by an anti-fungal for yeast infection. If she’s really lucky I’ll see her again and again for a never ending cycle of unhappy vagina.
HOWEVER. I have had great success recently with my new favourite probiotic: UltraFlora Women’s by Metagenics.
Why is it my favourite new probiotic?
This little combo packs a mean punch against vaginal flora imbalance. It’s been Health Canada approved for both bacterial vaginosis (BV) and vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), aka yeast infections. Each capsule contains two diferent strains of lactobacilli: lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1, and lactobacillus reuteri RC-14. This specific combination has shown some impressive results in treating BV and VVC.
Use in the treatment of Bacterial Vaginosis
First of all: Did you know that the treatment success for bacterial vaginosis is very rarely as high as 40%!? How many women have I sent away from the pharmacy counter with high hopes of BV abolishment, only to be sadly disappointed?! To those ladies, I apologize. From now on, I will also provide you with information on this probiotic.
I had a look at 3 BV studies for this probiotic. On it’s own it was able to restore the normal microbiota over 60% of the time with 6 weeks of use. When combined with other antibiotic therapies, there was a significant increase in the effectiveness of the regimen over placebo. When we look at the metronidazole study, the probiotic addition more than doubled the cure rate! The details on each study can be found in the infographic below:
Use in the treatment of Vulvovaginal Candidiasis (yeast infections).
So you get a prescription for metronidazole to treat your bacterial vaginosis and the pharmacist tells you “this medication may cause diarrhea or a vaginal yeast infection”. HOW LOVELY! JUST WHAT I NEED!
Fret no longer. Not only is this probiotic effective for bacterial vaginosis, but it also improves the effectiveness of yeast infection therapies like fluconazole as shown in the following figure:
The results in vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) are less impressive, possibly due to a higher cure rate of the standard therapy making the probiotic addition look less impressive. I’d still prefer an ~90% cure rate vs. 65% any day though!
How do I use it?
The second image on this page gives the regimens used in the trials reviewed, but generally the dosage is 2 capsules for 30 days.
Disclaimer:
Before adding this probiotic to your therapy, speak to your pharmacist. There are details of the studies that have not been presented here. For example, none of the studies included pregnant women, so the safety in this population is unknown.
Where can I get more information?
1) The citations at the bottom of the infographics point to the studies I read when formulating this blog post, so you can always read those.
2) I am working on a monograph of sorts with more detailed information aimed at healthcare providers. It will detail the populations studied including exclusion criteria, adverse effects and much more. Sign up for my e-mail list to be notified as soon as it’s ready!
Enjoy this article?
Subscribe to my e-mail list and get content straight to your inbox.
I have a full time job so you can rest assured there won’t be any spam coming from me! ;)
Alternatively, you can follow me on facebook and instagram.