Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) are a topic of much public interest, but also taboo. Everyone talks about them, but never from personal experience. So what dangers can unprotected sex lead to? You only need to look at the pictures and you’ll be running to buy condoms…
Many myths exist regarding STIs. Essentially, in the UK, one in nine 18-25 year olds has Chlamydia. This is an average. If you have Chlamydia, you are more likely to also have another STI. Forty percent of women and twenty percent of men with chlamydial infection are co-infected with gonorrhoea.
Let’s talk about Chlamydia first. It is a bacterium that lives within the cells of your urethra to begin with. Symptoms can include painful urination, testicular pain and penile discharge for men. Women may have painful urination, discharge, malodour, and later abdominal pain and pain during sex. Women may also notice unexpected bleeding between periods. The incubation period (period before symptoms appear) is 1-3 weeks. However, I have known men to only notice symptoms after eight weeks. Approximately 50% of infected males and 80% of infected females have no symptoms. So why is it so bad? Well, in both men and women it can travel to other areas of the reproductive system and lead to infertility. It is now the leading cause of infertility in women worldwide. This is called pelvic inflammatory disease. In addition, women with a chlamydial infection are at an increased risk of developing cervical cancer; risk is as high as 6.5 times greater compared to women without infection. It is tested for using swabs. The “umbrella” test for men is a myth. Herpes is a virus that exists in many forms. The form that is seen in genital herpes is different to that seen around the mouth (cold sores). Genital herpes is seen as painful open wounds in the skin on the penis or around the vagina. They are spread from skin to skin contact. Genital warts are spread in a similar fashion and are seen as raised often painless lumps. Again good treatments are available.
Warts, please compare with… herpes HIV (106,000 in the UK, and 7,000 new cases last year) and syphilis (ten fold increase over ten years), both exist in Val. These two illnesses can be detected by blood tests. Symptoms are varied and beyond the scope of this article. A few years ago, some life and medical insurance policies were affected if you were tested for HIV but this is no longer the case.
Hepatitis C, previously mainly spread through heroin use and blood transfusions is now mainly spread through unprotected sex. Depending which source you read, between 150 and 300 million people (2.5- 5%) worldwide are infected with the virus. It can have a long period of dormancy, but eventually attacks the liver leading to hepatitis. It is 100 times more contagious than HIV. It is also part of the screening test during a sexual health check.
One of the reasons for people not getting tested is embarrassment, but doctors and nurses are bound by confidentiality laws so you can be assured of privacy. Although you do have to pay for the tests, in March/April time, Vie Val D’Is arranges free testing for many STIs. However if you have genuine concerns, get yourself checked out sooner rather than later.
The old expression “you‘re not sleeping with one person, but all their previous partners” is definitely valid. In summary, there’s a lot of rubbish spoken out there, but STIs are rife so just be careful. I actually saw a patient once who told me he’d been using two condoms at once. This is a little excessive, expensive and probably killed the mood. They are well constructed nowadays, so one will suffice, but you actually have to have one to hand for them to work, so stock up next time you’re in the pharmacy or down in Bourg.
For more information, please visit www.patient.co.uk
Tags: S5E11
