Natural remedies for BV?

[JenRave]

I've been quiet a while, very busy with school and all, and the stupid Hurricane Isaac (not Sandy, Isaac!) got the semester off to a bad start. This is relevant I swear! It's like this:

Probably because of severe abuse and head trauma when I was young, I have to take medicine for temporal lobe issues, not seizures, but debilitating migraines with aura that never go away anymore. The medicine works like a dream and gave me my life back - topirimate. So I am going to keep taking it.  however, it does have some nasty side effects at time.

One of the side effects is that it makes it difficult for you to sweat, so you can't take heat very well, and also raises your blood pH. I have to watch out for metabolic acidosis all the time. Well during Isaac we had no electricity for nearly a week and it got VERY hot - I had no way to cool down. So I got pretty sick, and it took me a while to get my system back to normal.

Which leads to the bit with BV. I've had it before but not for a long time, over ten years. So when I started having the annoying symptoms that were *sort of* like a yeast infection but without the tell tale yuckiness, I began to worry. Finally it got bad enough today that I actually went to buy a pH screening kit and sure enough I have a pH between 5.0 and 5.5. (The color was a little hard to tell on the kit.) I don't have medical insurance and I am super busy writing my end of semester theses and the holidays and all and as it is I need to make an emergency appointment just to beg to get my other meds filled at the charity clinic. Besides, I don't want to take antibiotics, they give me yeast infections which seems to be missing the point entirely - as well as messing up my stomach really badly.

Anyway the point of all this rambling is that is there anyway anyone here knows to home treat this problem?  It isn't severe but it is recurring now I think, because of the acidic body problem I may continue having. I have read some stuff about alkaline suppositories, etc, but I'm really unfamiliar with this whole idea. I have very basic first aid type things at home.  I don't really know what's safe to use.  Baking soda?  Alcohol? (ow) Someone please help, this is miserable :(

[hippiemombian]

Eliminating sugar and refined grains will help. I wouldn't suggest baking soda or alcohol, but you can use a peroxide and water douche. You can also eat yogurt that contains active bacteria cultures, like the yobani greek yogurt. Make sure its plain, it takes like sour cream, but it has the good bacteria your vagina needs. If you google BV in the search bar you'll get tons of threads. Also, make sure you're drinking lots of water, eating a balanced diet etc. The more leafy greens (which are alkaline) the better. Try to stay away from foods that make your body acidic. Red meat and dairy do this. There are also charts and stuff you can look up that tell you if a food is acidic or alkaline.