Learn about Pelvic inflammatory disease symptoms from Consumer Reports Health.

Pelvic inflammatory disease

What are the symptoms of pelvic inflammatory disease?

It's not easy to tell if you have pelvic inflammatory disease (PID for short). This is because the symptoms can be mild, or you may not feel ill at all.

You may have PID if you have these symptoms:

Source:
Ross J.
United Kingdom national guideline for the management of pelvic inflammatory disease.
February 2005. Available at http://www.bashh.org/documents/118/118.pdf (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pelvic inflammatory disease.
Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Pain in the lower part of your abdomen
Pain during sex, which you feel deep inside your body
Bleeding between your periods
A discharge from your vagina, which is different from normal and may smell bad.

If you have these symptoms, it is important that you see a doctor to get your symptoms checked out.

You may also have these symptoms:

Source:
U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Medline Plus: pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).
September 2008. Available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000888.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Chills
Increased pain during your period or during

ovulation
To get pregnant, a woman needs to release an egg from one of her ovaries. This is called ovulation. It normally happens once every month. The egg leaves the ovary and moves toward the womb.

ovulation (this is the time in the middle of your

menstrual cycle
A woman's periods are part of her menstrual cycle. This is the regular monthly pattern of events that causes an egg to be released from the ovaries so a woman can get pregnant and causes the bleeding that happens if she does not get pregnant.

menstrual cycle when an egg is released by one of your ovaries)
Bleeding after sex
Pain in your lower back
Tiredness
Loss of appetite
Nausea or vomiting.

Your periods may stop or you may pass urine more often, and you may have pain when passing urine.

Your doctor will ask about your symptoms. They will probably do an exam of your lower abdomen and the inside of your vagina. During this exam your doctor will check for these signs of PID:

Tenderness in the lower part of your abdomen
Tenderness in your reproductive organs.

Your doctor will also check your temperature. A temperature of more than 100.4 degrees means you are more likely to have an infection. Your doctor may also take a sample of your blood and a swab from your

cervix
The cervix is a piece of tissue that sits between a woman's womb and her vagina. It has a small opening in it that gets much bigger when a woman is having a baby.

cervix to check for signs of infection.

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pelvic inflammatory disease.
Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

If it is possible that you might be pregnant, you will be offered a pregnancy test.

¹ This is because if you are pregnant, treatment for PID is usually done in the hospital.

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pelvic inflammatory disease.
Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Your doctor can't tell for certain from these checks whether you have PID. But delaying treatment could risk the infection damaging your fertility. So your doctor will probably start you on

antibiotics
These medications are used to help your immune system fight infection. There are a number of different types of antibiotics that work in different ways to get rid of bacteria, parasites and other infectious agents. Antibiotics do not work against viruses.

antibiotics right away if:

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pelvic inflammatory disease.
Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

You're a young, sexually active woman, or you're at risk of sexually transmitted infections
You have tenderness and signs of infection.

The results of the swab test may help confirm the diagnosis. But if the treatment doesn't make you better, or if there are serious concerns about the diagnosis, you may have to go to the hospital for more checks.

You can have PID without having any symptoms at all. But although the disease may not be making you feel ill, it can still damage your reproductive organs.

You may not realize you have PID until you get more serious problems. For example, if you're having problems getting pregnant, you might find that your

fallopian tubes
Fallopian tubes are the two tubes that come out of the top of a woman's womb. They carry eggs from the ovaries to the womb.

fallopian tubes are blocked. This is one consequence of PID. But most women with blocked fallopian tubes caused by PID don't know that they had PID.

Source:
Grodstein F, Rothman KJ.
Epidemiology of pelvic inflammatory disease.
Epidemiology. 1994; 5: 234-242.

⁴

Sources for the information on this page:

Ross J.United Kingdom national guideline for the management of pelvic inflammatory disease.February 2005. Available at http://www.bashh.org/documents/118/118.pdf (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Pelvic inflammatory disease.Available at http://www.cdc.gov/std/PID/STDFact-PID.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

U.S. National Library of Medicine.Medline Plus: pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).September 2008. Available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000888.htm (accessed on 30 April 2009).

Grodstein F, Rothman KJ.Epidemiology of pelvic inflammatory disease.Epidemiology. 1994; 5: 234-242.

This information was last updated on May 01, 2009

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment.
© BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2009. All rights reserved.

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