Infections that keep coming back
Why recurrence happens, why it is not your hygiene, and what has changed about treating partners.
First, the thing you have probably been told wrongly: recurring vaginal infections are not caused by being unclean. If anything, over-washing makes them more likely. Douching, scented washes, and "feminine hygiene" products strip the bacteria that protect you. The advice to scrub harder has been backwards for decades.
They are not all the same — and they are easy to confuse
Most people who treat themselves for a yeast infection do not have one. The symptoms overlap enough that guessing is genuinely hard, and treating the wrong thing prolongs the misery — which is exactly why we test rather than assume.
A simple swab distinguishes these in minutes to days. Without it, a course of the wrong treatment can leave you with the original problem plus irritation from a medication you did not need. If you have been through several rounds of treatment with no lasting relief, the first question is not "which antibiotic next" — it is whether the diagnosis was ever confirmed.
Partner treatment — what changed
Recurrent infectionsFor decades, women with recurring bacterial vaginosis were retreated with the same antibiotics, over and over, and told their partner had nothing to do with it. Meanwhile more than half relapsed within three to six months — and among women with a regular partner, 60 to 80 percent did. That pattern was treated as bad luck, or quietly blamed on the woman.
Researchers randomly assigned couples to either the usual approach — treating the woman alone — or treating both partners at once, the man with a week of oral antibiotic plus a topical cream. Recurrence at 12 weeks fell from 63% to 35%. The trial was stopped early, because treating the woman alone was clearly the worse option.
Because it reframes something people have carried privately for years. If you have been through six rounds of antibiotics, changed your soap, your underwear, your detergent, and your diet — and it still came back — the reason may simply be that only half the couple was ever being treated. That is not a failure of your body or your hygiene. It is a treatment strategy that was incomplete.
Where partner treatment fits, by infection
It helps to frame it the way the researchers did: couples share bacteria, both helpful and unhelpful, and treating together works better than treating alone. It is not an accusation and it is not about infidelity. Men usually have no symptoms at all, which is exactly why this was missed for so long. You are welcome to bring your partner to the visit, or hand them this page.
General education, not medical advice for your specific situation. Partner-treatment data: Vodstrcil LA, Plummer EL, Fairley CK, et al., StepUp Team. Male-partner treatment to prevent recurrence of bacterial vaginosis. N Engl J Med 2025;392:947–957.