vaginapagina | Pink eye, STIs and milky discharge

Pink eye, STIs and milky discharge

Hi all!

Long time follower, first time poster. I have a rather strange question to ask that I'm fairly sure hasn't been asked. If it has, I apologize and feel free to delete.

I work direct care for individuals with disabilities. One of the girls with whom I work quite closely with, I believe, has come down with pink eye. This girl is pretty much reliant on me for everything, including toileting and eating. I've accepted that it is quite possible I have contracted the virus/bacterial infection as well, since I caught a cold from her last week.

After doing a quick search on my phone while I was at work, I quickly read something that stated that if a person has chlamydia or gonorrhea, it can be transferred to their eye, resulting in pink eye.

I know the girl I work with did not get pink eye from this, and if I have it, I know that I didn't get it from either one of these STI's, however, this information is causing me to make some connections that may or may not be rational. I also know that the girl did not get pink eye from me first, since I don't have any concrete symptoms (just the ones I could be fabricating in my mind from my own paranoia), and she had clear cut symptoms when I came into work yesterday for the first time in a week, and didn't have the symptoms when I left work a week ago.

The first question I have is, if it is possible to get pink eye from these STI's, is it possible for the transmission to be reversed? Meaning, can pink eye be transferred to the genitals, resulting in an STI?

The reason I'm asking is because last night, while working with this girl, I happened to notice half way through my shift that around the opening of my vagina was somewhat sore. When I went to the bathroom and wiped, I noticed some milky discharge. The milky discharge is something that is not super uncommon for me, but it's rare enough for me to not remember the last time this has happened. My discharge is usually clear. I didn't even make this connection with the pink eye until after I read the article (which conveniently I cannot locate right now). The soreness came back again during my shift today and the milky discharge has returned.

I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance. I'm in a monogamous relationship and even if my assumptions are true and I end up having an STI from the pink eye, my boyfriend will be hesitant to believe I've been faithful. I have been, but I'm sure it would be hard to believe.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

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Wait, so because you care for a girl (woman?) with pinkeye, you think that you'll get it too? That part's not too surprising, given how damn contagious pinkeye is. Keep washing your hands thoroughly, etc. Kidshealth.org (http://kidshealth.org/teen/infections/common/conjunctivitis.html) says that STIs can jump from the genitals to the eye if you touch your genitals and then rub your eye, so I assume that the eye-genitals link works in reverse. However, you'd need to be quick and direct, just like with genitals-eye transmission.

What confuses me is that you jump right to STIs. Do you have a reason to think that she got pinkeye through chlamydia or gonorrhea? There are other causes of pinkeye, after all! (Otherwise it wouldn't be so rampant in elementary schools!)

If this patient does have an STI, it raises a major red flag for me. Sexual assault is a very real concern for people with disabilities, particularly those who rely on others for their daily needs. But you say that she is highly unlikely to have gotten an STI, and you're just being anxiously irrational.

So I'll write it out, because direct phrasing often helps me: You do not have an STI from this person's pinkeye.

As for your discharge, remember that you can have discharge changes when you get sick!

No. I stated that she did not get pink eye from an STI. The STI statement/question has nothing to do with her, just me.

I guess I should elaborate, in steps...

I'm pretty sure the girl I care for has pink eye. She probably got it from school or another staff member since it's highly contagious(I heard that another staff member also has pink eye).

Since I work closely with this girl, there is a great possibility that I have probably contracted pink eye. This is not a definite conclusion, but since it is highly contagious, it is likely.

(On another side note: Yesterday, an area around my vagina was sore, and was sore again today. I also had milky discharge. This isn't uncommon, but is rare for me.)

Today, I read an article saying that individuals who have gonorrhea or chlamydia can give themselves pink eye, since they are the same virus/bacterial infection (can't remember which) (I'm assuming by touching their genitals, then their eye?). Here is an article that I found that says chlamydia can cause pink eye:
http://www.infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/our-current-situation.html
"It can also cause an inflamed rectum and inflammation of the lining of the eye (“pink eye”)." I'm sure there are other better articles out there, but this is the first one I could find on google search.

The Question: Hypothetically, if I have pink eye, is it possible to give myself the STI(s) that I listed above if I just so happened to touch my eye and then touch my genitals, (since the STI's listed apparently can cause pink eye) because they are the same type of virus/bacterial infection?

I do not have an STI. I am 100% sure and I am 100% sure she doesn't as well.

Edited 2012-04-30 01:18 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, I obviously got confused.

All conjunctivitis/pinkeye means is that your eye has gotten infected by something. It does not necessarily indicate the pathogen's species, and as this WebMD page states (http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/eye-health-conjunctivitis), can be caused by all sorts of things.

I suppose it's possible to transfer whatever is causing the pinkeye to your vagina, but that will not magically turn it into chlamydia or gonorrhea. Those are two separate bacteria species, with their own biological needs.

Think of it this way: Dandelions grow in my lawn, where it is a weed. Arugula grows in my garden, where it is delicious. I have mint growing in a pot. If my mint escapes to my lawn, it does not become dandelions, it just becomes a weed.

A weed is just what we call a plant that is not growing where we want it to grow. It can be any species of plant. Pinkeye is just an infection of the eye. It can be any species of pathogen that likes the eye (it can even be dust or allergies). Just because a pathogen has jumped from the eye to the genitals does not make it an STI, and it definitely does not make it chlamydia or gonorrhea unless it already was that from the outset.

I apologize if this all sounds patronizing, I'm just trying to be very clear, and cover a bunch of bases and learning styles.

PS: all that article is saying is that chlamydia can infect the eye as well. It does not say that pinkeye is generally, usually or always chlamydia.

Given the plant analogy, it's just saying that mint can grow in my pot or my lawn, and not saying that all things in the lawn (or the pot) are even necessarily related to mint.

No it doesn't sound patronizing. Rationally I agree with you, but then I think of the herpes virus (it can be in your mouth or on your genitals). Here's something a little better from webmd:

http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/understanding-conjunctivitis-basics

"Gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease, is the most important form of bacterial conjunctivitis and it can lead to vision loss if left untreated. Another sexually transmitted disease, chlamydia, can cause conjunctivitis in adults and also in newborns when the disease is passed to the child from its mother"

Since conjunctivitis is pink eye, and chlamydia can cause conjunctivitis, I'm wondering if conjunctivitis can cause chlamydia.

Edited 2012-04-30 01:31 (UTC)

I'm not disputing that those two STIs can cause conjunctivitis. I'm just saying that if this girl's pinkeye isn't caused by gonorrhea or chlamydia, you will not get either of those from her. You might get staphylococci of some form, or the cold virus, (http://www.medicinenet.com/pink_eye/article.htm#What_infections_cause_symptoms_and_how_are_they_treated) but you won't get gonorrhea or chlamydia. (Wow, no wonder slang terms come about. "The clap" is so much easier to type!)

Or is that not in contention? I think I need to eat dinner and jumpstart my brain.

Would it help to talk to the staff member who got pinkeye and ask how they treated it?

Edited 2012-04-30 01:34 (UTC)

I'm not really too worried about contracting pink eye. If I get it, I get it; oh well :)

After reading the article about how chlamydia can cause the pink eye, and thinking about how I've had some soreness, I guess it just made me start to make connections that I could not verify if they were true or not. I already knew I didn't have an STI and she didn't either... but I didn't know if I could contract one from the pink eye because the STI can give pink eye. However, I haven't really found anything that says HOW the chlamydia makes the pink eye happen (does someone have to touch their genitals, then their eye to get the pink eye, or is it a side effect from the chlamydia?) I think it's these unanswered questions that have me making connections between the possible pink eye and the soreness around my vagina... which is probably irrational anyway.

Pink eye just means "the eye is infected or irritated". In the WebMD link I gave above, it explains how anything that makes the eye all itchy, sore, angry or red is pink eye. (Like a weed is any plant that's growing where you don't want it to grow!)

So chlamydia makes pink eye by getting introduced to the mucus membrane of the eye, then growing there. The links you gave me above explained how babies can get it when their moms have chlamydia during labor, and the baby's eyes get all rubbed with the infected vaginal tissue.

Chlamydia causes pink eye very rarely--as those articles you posted point out--and only when the infection is transferred to the eye. The same thing is the case with ocular herpes: it requires a direct transfer, which is rather rare, because herpes doesn't live on healthy, closed skin very well, and so can't live on your finger long enough for an incidental touch to the eye.

Does that help?

Yes, it does :)

I guess the fact that they were called the same thing threw me. And I couldn't find anything to help me with why the chlamydia caused the pink eye. I don't know enough about the herpes virus to know exactly how they can be transferred. I know through sex, obviously, but not the nitty gritty details. I just didn't want to end up with an STI and not know what to tell my partner :)

I really don't think it'll happen. If the girl doesn't have it, you're not going to get it from her.

English is a confusing language sometimes, with words that can mean many things. Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

Pinkeye (conjunctivitis) just means the eye is irritated. It can be caused by allergies or any number of viruses and bacteria. Viruses, like the adenovirus that also causes cold and cough symptoms, are a very common cause, especially in children. It can be hard to tell examining a person if their conjunctivitis is caused by a virus or bacteria, so many doctors will prescribe antibiotic eye drops just in case it is a bacteria. In the case of a person who recently had a cold, it is likely the pinkeye is part of the same virus that caused the cold.

Bacterial pinkeye is pretty contageous from one person touching the affected eye and then touching their own eye. Staph, strep and a bacteria called H influenzae are the most common. Gonorrhea and chlamydia are other bacteria that can cause conjunctivitis - most likely in babies born to mothers who had an infection, and sometimes in adults who have the infection elsewhere in their bodies.

It would be possible, although I suspect, unlikely, a person could transmit the bacteria from the eye to the genitals, if there were contact without handwashing. So in the rare case that a person's pinkeye were caused by a bacteria that also causes STIs, I can't say it would be impossible to spread the way you describe. But it would be really unlikely, and only if the initial person's infection was caused by gonorrhea or chlamydia in the first place.

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