Does Alcohol Cause Yeast Infections?
If you keep getting vaginal yeast infections after a night out, you may be asking yourself if alcohol can be the cause. In this article, I’ll explain why and how alcohol can trigger your yeast infections and what you can do to prevent it from happening in the future.
Your body is colonized by all sorts of microorganisms, one of them is called Candida and it’s responsible for causing unpleasant vaginal yeast infection symptoms. It can only happen when the balance between friendly bacteria (probiotics) and potentially harmful microorganisms is upset.
Once there aren’t enough friendly bacteria in your body, Candida cells have got perfect conditions and space to thrive, feed and reproduce causing a vaginal yeast infection. Alcohol is one of the substances shown to upset your bacterial flora, it also increases cortisol levels in your blood, which can inhibit your immune system making you more susceptible to vaginal yeast infections.
What Else Can Cause Vaginal Yeast Infections?
Other factors that can cause your friendly bacteria to die off:
- alcohol consumption
- taking antibiotics
- taking estrogen-rich contraceptive pills
- drinking coffee
- enduring chronic stress
- bathing in chemically sanitized water (swimming pool)
So just by avoiding these trigger factors, you can significantly reduce the risk of getting a vaginal yeast infection.
How to prevent a yeast infection after drinking alcohol?
- Taking probiotic supplements every day will help you keep healthy levels of friendly bacteria in your body. Make sure you take your pill after a night out.
- Using vaginal suppositories with probiotics will boost the bacterial flora in your vagina and prevent Candida overgrowth.
- If you’re drinking alcoholic drinks during your period, use probiotic tampons to reestablish healthy vaginal flora and boost your defenses against yeast infection.
- Eating probiotic-rich foods such as yogurt, olives or miso soup, after a night out will also give you a much-needed probiotic boost and strengthen your immune system.
- Find what else you can do to prevent vaginal yeast infections.
Read More: Not Sure if it’s a Yeast Infection? Get a Test Kit!
Does alcohol make fluconazole less effective?
While there are no known interactions between alcohol and fluconazole, alcohol consumption can definitely make this antifungal medication less effective. As alcohol may lower your immunity and probiotic levels in your body, lowering your defenses against yeast infection, your fluconazole treatment may not be effective or it may take much longer than it normally would.
Conclusion
So, does alcohol cause vaginal yeast infections? Yes, it does. When trying to prevent a yeast infection, cutting your alcohol intake is a must.
The best thing you can do is to eliminate alcoholic drinks completely from your diet, but for many of you, it’s not an option. So, if you decide to drink alcohol, make sure you take probiotics, either in the form of supplements, suppositories, tampons, or at least by including probiotic-rich foods in your diet.
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It’s also worth trying to reduce your coffee intake and avoid taking antibiotics whenever possible to reduce the risk of getting a vaginal yeast infection. If you keep getting yeast infections while on contraceptive pills, talk to your gynecologist about switching to a progestin-only pill and see if it helps. If you want to know more, check my article about what causes vaginal yeast infections.
For more information about how alcohol affects yeast infections, watch this video:
Do you think drinking alcohol triggers your yeast infection? have you tried cutting on alcohol and did it help? Please share your questions and comments in the comment section below.
Recently every time I drink champagne I’ve gotten a yeast infection. I feel that perhaps other types of alcohol do not cause this as much, such as red wine. I’m cutting all out for now and increasing my vitamin D intake, as deficiency might also be making me more susceptible.
This information is so beneficial for women and my heart goes out to you with all the biologically associated things that women have to deal with. Us guys really need to be alot more sensitive towards these issues women may suffer from. And guys if you think yeast infections are only in reference to women think again and read the article on male yeast infections you will be shocked.
What a great comment Troy, thanks a lot! A vaginal yeast infection can be extremely unpleasant, so I’m trying to inform women about all the possible factors that can trigger it, so they can avoid it in future. Guys can also get a yeast infection but luckily their symptoms are not as bad as in women.
I do agree with you that drinking alcohol increases your chances of getting a yeast infection. I have found that it’s the combination of other factors such as stress and drinking coffee and not looking after your body in general that increase the chances of getting a yeast infection.
I have cut down on drinking alcohol by only on special occasions do I drink it and it has helped. I get my probiotics daily by eating yogurt and sometimes taking a probiotic supplement.
Is tea a good substitute for coffee, or is it the caffeine that help cause the yeast infection?
Thank you for commenting Dinh. I’ve just done a little research about tea and it turns out that black tea has got only a bit less caffeine than brewed coffee, so it’s another drink to avoid. Green and white tea have only about 20% of the caffeine you’ll find in brewed coffee, so they seem like a good replacement.