I was experiencing some symptoms (watery greenish discharge, itching, inflammation) and went in for a pap. When my lab results came back the doctor told me that I was negative for gonohorrea and chlamydia, but prescribed doxycycline and vandazole for the inflammation in my cervix. Those did not help my symptoms and I didn't feel like my doctor was very helpful. So I went to an OB-GYN to get a second opinion. She looked at my previous lab results and told me that Trichomonas was identified. Not sure why my previous doctor didn't say anything about that, but that's besides the point. The OB-GYN said that in her experience my symptoms were conducive to trich, but took a culture to confirm and would call me with the lab results. In the meantime, she prescribed metranidazole, which has been helping. She called me the next day and told me that the culture lab results came back negative for trich, gono and chlam.
So how is it that my pap smear tested positive for Trichomonas, but my culture tested negative? Which test is more accurate?? Any insight?
I asked my OB-GYN, and she told me that the culture samples are small, so if trich showed up in my pap, then it's likely that is what I have. Also, a number of things could have occurred with the swabs - the samples dried up prior to being analyzed, human error in identifying the organism, etc. However, when I did my own research, it appears paps are not very reliable in diagnosing trich and should be confirmed with a culture...which did not help much in my case. I have another appointment in about a week. I would like to get a third test to figure out what this is, but with the treatment I'm getting now, it may no longer be present.