Mycoplasma positive
Mycoplasma is a group of prokaryotic organisms smaller than bacteria and larger than viruses, widely distributed in nature, including some animals and humans. Several species of mycoplasma have been isolated from the human body and are related to the reproductive tract. The main cause of reproductive tract disease is Mycoplasma solium, which is mainly transmitted through sexual contact and mother-to-child transmission. Even if the urogenital tract is tested positive for mycoplasma, not all are patients: epidemiological surveys have shown that 34% of normal men can be isolated with Mycoplasma solium.
Mycoplasma infection of the genitourinary tract causes the disease non-gonococcal urethritis in men and mainly non-gonococcal urogenital tract infection in women. Males present with urethral tingling, burning sensation and difficulty in urination, and in a few cases, frequent urination. The urethral opening is mildly red and swollen, and the discharge is thin, and some patients are asymptomatic. In women, the symptoms are increased leucorrhea, burning in the urethra or pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal inflammatory disease and other causes of infertility, miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy.
Treatment misconceptions
Mycoplasma is a conditionally pathogenic bacteria. Mycoplasma may reside in the genital tract of both infants and the elderly, and the detection rate in the genital tract of adult men and women is very high. Surveys have shown that mycoplasma can be detected in the urethra of 34% of normal males and in the cervix of 60.9% of females who do not have any symptoms. This means that this “mycoplasma-positive” condition is normal and does not require any treatment. Some “patients” have a tendency to over-treat.
So why do many clinics and hospitals treat people who are positive for mycoplasma? This is because, indeed, there are studies that suggest that mycoplasma is related to sexually transmitted diseases such as non-gonococcal urethritis and epididymitis, and also has some relevance to genitourinary diseases such as prostatitis, urethritis, pyelonephritis, pelvic inflammatory disease. Therefore, many hospitals carry out screening and treatment for mycoplasma. The detection rate of positive mycoplasma has increased with the improvement of the examination technology and the sensitivity of the examination methods.
So, what should I do if I am found to be positive for mycoplasma during an outpatient examination? You may wish to refer to the following countermeasures to avoid unnecessary panic and overtreatment, but also timely treatment of related diseases.
Situation 1: Mycoplasma is detected simply from the urethra and vagina without any accompanying symptoms.
Countermeasure: Ignore it, no treatment is needed.
Analysis: This “mycoplasma positive” is a normal carrier state and does not mean that it causes disease. If your doctor were to perform a whole-body microbiological culture, at least dozens of pathogens could be isolated, but this does not mean that you have dozens of diseases. This mycoplasma positivity is not the same as mycoplasma infection; mycoplasmas can live with a person without showing signs of infection. Moreover, as a normal population, even if medication reduces their carriage rate, after a period of normal sexual behavior, the carriage rate will return to its original level. Therefore, do not panic, and do not abuse drugs to over-treat.
Situation 2: Mycoplasma is detected along with inflammation of the genital tract or combined sexually transmitted diseases.
Countermeasure: Anti-mycoplasma treatment.
Analysis: This kind of “mycoplasma positive” belongs to the state of infection and needs active treatment. After treatment, the rate of mycoplasma carriage is reduced, which helps accelerate the healing of reproductive tract diseases or sexually transmitted diseases.
Situation 3: Mycoplasma positive is found in the preconception test.
Response: When there are symptoms or fertility requirements, it is recommended that both men and women be examined at the same time, and those who are positive for mycoplasma should be treated formally.
Analysis: Mycoplasma positive is an infection that can have an impact on the process of pregnancy. Patients with mycoplasma infection can consider pregnancy after one to three months after the treatment of mycoplasma. This is because the residual of various “substances” during treatment may cause fetal abnormalities. Although most of these substances are excreted from the body, some of them can remain in the body and affect the formation of sperm or cause sperm malformations that can affect the fetus. Therefore, patients with mycoplasma infections should consider pregnancy only one to three months after they have been cured.
The patient can develop symptoms of urethritis after mycoplasma infection through the urethra and can develop chronic prostatitis secondary to it. On examination of the prostate fluid, a lively, swimming community of microorganisms is visible. Mycoplasma also continues to infect the seminal tract, seminal vesicles and testes, affecting the quality of sperm and semen and causing infertility.
It has been observed that mycoplasma can cause infertility through the following links.
1, interference with sperm movement: sperm movement is an important function of healthy sperm, is an important indicator of whether sperm can be conceived, and sperm movement must have a certain speed and frequency. Mycoplasma infected sperm, often attached to the head and tail of the sperm, so that the entire sperm hung with attachments of varying sizes, resulting in sperm swimming weak, entangled with each other, resulting in infertility.
2, sperm deformation rate increases: mycoplasma infection leads to increased sperm deformation rate is another feature that causes infertility. According to clinical observation, the sperm deformity rate can sometimes be as high as 80% in such infertility patients.
3, destruction of spermatogenic cells: the testis has a large number of spermatogenic cells in the varicocele, which develop and reproduce to form sperm. When mycoplasma enters the testicular varicose ducts from the urethra and prostate, it destroys the sperm cells and makes the “sperm factory” produce shoddy products, leading to infertility.
For women
Mycoplasma urealyticum can invade the urethra, cervix and vestibular gland, causing urethritis, cervicitis and vestibular glanditis; when infected upstream, it can cause endometritis, pelvic inflammatory disease and tubal inflammatory disease, especially tubal inflammatory disease. Pathological changes in female reproductive organs caused by Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae infection are an important cause of infertility. Domestic and foreign data suggest that the culture positivity rate of Mycoplasma urealyticum in cervical mucus and semen of infertile couples is as high as 50% or more, which shows that there is a correlation between Mycoplasma urealyticum infection and the occurrence of infertility. Another cause of poor performance due to Mycoplasma urealyticum infection is miscarriage, and some people have detected positive rates of Mycoplasma urealyticum in tissues from miscarriages of up to 40% or more. Therefore, the possibility of having Mycoplasma urealyticum infection should be considered for unexplained miscarriages, especially in those with multiple miscarriages. Inflammatory adhesions in incompletely obstructed fallopian tubes caused by Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae infection can narrow the lumen and make it inaccessible, and are also an important cause of ectopic pregnancy.
After pregnancy, women are more susceptible to infection by Mycoplasma decidua due to the increase in progesterone, which suppresses cellular immunity and decreases the body’s resistance, and perinatal infections caused by Mycoplasma decidua have become a new problem in modern obstetrics. Mycoplasma urealyticum can be transmitted vertically through the placenta or spread upstream from the lower genital tract of pregnant women, causing intrauterine infection, both of which can lead to miscarriage, premature birth, intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight, premature rupture of fetal membranes, and even intrauterine fetal death.
For the fetus
Mycoplasma infection itself can cause infertility, miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight babies and fetal malformations. But first of all, it depends on how many months of pregnancy you are infected, if it is early pregnancy, it may have an effect on the fetus, but in the middle and late pregnancy, when the fetal organs are well developed, the effect is not significant. The two can lead to miscarriage, premature birth, intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight, premature rupture of membranes, and even fetal death in the womb. During delivery, the fetus is also susceptible to infection when it is delivered through the birth canal. The common ones are neonatal ophthalmia, followed by neonatal respiratory tract infection, otitis media, laryngitis, etc.