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Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 13: Treating Penile Skin Lesions

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MichelangeloWelcome to the latest installment of “Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does,” a series on Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s blog that highlights Planned Parenthood’s diverse array of services — the ones Jon Kyl never knew about.

Today kicks off Men’s Health Week, which means it’s time to remind you that Planned Parenthood Arizona has plenty of men’s health services. Sexual and reproductive health are our bread and butter, and we’re here for you if you need condoms or routine STD screening, or if something is amiss in your nether regions and you’d like us to take a look! One thing we do is evaluate and treat penile skin lesions.

Is something amiss on your penis? We can check it out!

What is a lesion, anyway? “Lesion” is a general term that can refer to any kind of abnormality that appears on your skin or elsewhere in the body, like on an organ. Usually they’re well-defined, as in blisters, spots, bumps, warts, or what have you. A change of appearance on the penis can be caused by all sorts of things. Maybe it’s something minor, like an irritation or an allergic reaction. Or it could be a relatively benign dermatological condition, like pimples or skin tags.

But sometimes, an infectious agent might be at play. You might be suffering from a yeast infection, a sexually transmitted disease (STD), or even penile cancer. For the sake of your health — and your peace of mind — you should be evaluated by a health professional, just so you can know for sure what’s going on and receive treatment if necessary. Continue reading →

Can Oral Herpes Be Spread to Genitals?

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A cold sore on the lower lip on the second day after onset. Image: CDC

Herpes simplex virus is mystifying, fascinating, and sneaky. Mystifying because we have yet to unravel all of its secrets; fascinating because when we do uncover one of its mysteries, we are amazed by the capabilities of such a tiny, microscopic object; and sneaky because it enters our bodies by stealth and conceals itself in our cells, taking us by surprise when it comes out of hiding and causes outbreaks of blisters and other lesions.

It can also be confusing. Herpes simplex virus actually comes in two flavors: HSV-1 and HSV-2. HSV-1 is associated more with oral herpes, which can cause “cold sores,” a type of blister that appears on the lips or face. HSV-2 is associated more with genital herpes, which can cause blisters and other lesions in the genital area. It used to be standard to describe HSV-1 as an “above-the-waist” infection and HSV-2 as a “below-the-belt” infection — but now many researchers are pointing out that it’s more appropriate to say that HSV-1 is both an orally and genitally transmitted infection while HSV-2 is a predominantly genitally transmitted infection. If HSV-1 enters the body in the genital area, it can cause a genital herpes infection — and likewise, if HSV-2 enters the body in the facial area, it can cause an oral herpes infection.

Using condoms and dental dams during oral sex reduces risk of herpes transmission.

What exactly is a cold sore, anyway? A cold sore, also known as a fever blister, is a cluster of blisters that can pop up around the lips or even in the mouth. Sometimes, cold sores are so painful that eating or drinking is difficult, and in extreme cases sufferers must be treated for dehydration. An especially severe infection could also cause high fever or swollen lymph nodes, and in young adults a first oral HSV-1 infection might be misdiagnosed as tonsillitis, possibly leading to unnecessary tonsillectomies. Most symptomatic first-time cold-sore outbreaks occur during childhood, and take about two or three weeks to clear up. Luckily, the first infection is almost always the most severe, and when the infection is reactivated it usually happens without symptoms.

Because both cold sores and genital herpes are caused by herpes simplex viruses, and because oral herpes is so common, many people are concerned that they might be more vulnerable to acquiring a genital herpes infection than they previously thought. They might have a lot of questions, and if they’ve sought answers to those questions, they might have heard a lot of conflicting answers. Let’s see what the scientific literature has to say.

  • Can I get genital herpes if someone with cold sores performs oral sex on me?

Because HSV-1, the virus responsible for most oral herpes infections, can also cause genital herpes, many people wonder if someone with cold sores can transmit the virus to someone else by performing oral sex, resulting in a genital herpes infection. Other people wonder if HSV-1 can be transmitted via oral contact with the anus, resulting in a herpes infection in the rectal area. The answer to these questions is: Yes! Continue reading →

STD Awareness: 10 Myths About Sexually Transmitted Diseases

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The Internet is brimming with contradictory claims about sexual health, and you don’t know what to believe. Your friends give you advice, but you’re not sure if it sounds right. To make things worse, you might not have had evidence-based, medically accurate sex education in your school. In this edition of our STD Awareness series, we’ll take on a few myths about sexually transmitted diseases to help you sort fact from fiction.

1 MYTH: You can tell if someone has an STD by looking at them.
You might expect that if someone has an STD, their genitals would have blisters, warts, or noticeable discharge. But your partner looks fine, so you might think there’s no need to ask when his or her last STD test was.

However, while many people with STDs do have visible symptoms, they’re the exception rather than the rule. For example, three out of four women and half of men with chlamydia have no symptoms. Herpes is often spread when there are no symptoms present. Someone can be infected with HIV — and capable of transmitting it to others — and go years without showing any signs. A quick visual inspection can’t tell you very much about someone’s STD status.

2 MYTH: You can’t get an STD from oral sex.
While it is generally true that oral sex presents less of a risk for contracting STDs, this risk is not trivial. Most STDs can be passed along by oral sex, including chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis B, herpes, human papillomavirus (HPV), and HIV. You can reduce your risk by using barrier methods like condoms and dental dams consistently and correctly.

3 MYTH: Condoms can’t prevent the spread of HIV.
Many proponents of abstinence-only education state that condoms don’t protect against HIV, claiming that latex condoms have holes that are large enough for viruses to pass through. This claim isn’t backed by evidence. An intact latex condom dramatically reduces your risk of being exposed to sexually transmitted viruses such as HIV. (It is true that a lambskin condom does not provide adequate protection against HIV.) Continue reading →

Celebrating Valentine’s Day – The Safe Way

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The following guest post comes to us via Morganne Rosenhaus, community engagement coordinator for Planned Parenthood Arizona.

Valentine’s Day might be filled with red roses, chocolate hearts, and candlelight dinners, but there is one thing this celebration of love often forgets to include … the mention of safe sex!

It is no coincidence that Valentine’s Day and National Condom Awareness Week happen around the same time each year. In fact, it’s planned … no pun intended!

According to a statistic from Lifestyles Condoms (released last year), there are, on average, 87 condoms used every second during Valentine’s Day. That’s more than 125,000 condoms on Valentine’s Day alone.

So the question isn’t, Are people having sex on Valentine’s Day? The question is, Are people having safe and healthy sex on Valentine’s Day?

As a trusted health care provider, Planned Parenthood Arizona knows firsthand the important role education plays in helping people make healthy decisions when it comes to sex. So here is your safe sex “lesson” for Valentine’s Day:

The first priority for being sexually healthy is using protection. Condoms are a popular method of contraception and can be anywhere from 82 to 98 percent effective at preventing pregnancy. And, when used correctly, condoms also offer added protection from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as HIV, chlamydia, HPV, gonorrhea, and syphilis.

But, before getting too carried away with all the benefits of condoms, let’s take a moment and talk about “correct condom use,” because if you aren’t using the condom correctly, you aren’t getting all of its benefits. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: An Update on Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea

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Last year, we shared the fascinating and frightening story of the emergence of increasingly antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, an STD caused by the gonococci bacteria. The sexually transmitted scourge, which we only so recently reined in with the development of antibiotics, has been performing some genetic gymnastics to defeat almost every drug we’ve thrown at it. We douse it with certain drugs, and the bacterium literally spits them back out at us, and it inactivates other drugs by snapping the active molecules in half. Sulfa drugs, penicillins, tetracyclines, fluoroquinolones — they all make a gonococcus heave a bored sigh. Luckily, cephalosporins were still an effective treatment, but recently there have been reports of stubborn gonorrhea infections caused by the latest and greatest (and some might say most hated) strain of gonococci.

The bacteria that cause gonorrhea continue to evolve, right under our noses!

Well, the story isn’t over — just like the bacteria that cause gonorrhea, the tale is rapidly evolving. The latest class of antibiotics that the gonococci are chipping away at is the cephalosporin family, which includes several chemically related drugs that work in similar ways — and that can likewise be defeated by microbes in similar ways. Cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea was first reported in Japan and documented in a few European countries. The Japanese case that inspired the New England Journal of Medicine to declare last year that it was “time to sound the alarm” was an oral gonorrhea infection that was resistant to one member of the cephalosporin family: ceftriaxone.

Earlier this month, the prestigious medical journal JAMA reported the first North American sightings of gonorrhea that failed treatment with another cephalosporin: cefixime. Yeah, I know, you’d rather hear about Big Foot or UFO sightings, not evidence that something as real and unmythical as Gonorrhea 5.0 has landed in your back yard. Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to protect yourself from it, and we’ll tell you all about it toward the end of this article. (Spoiler alert: It involves using condoms!) Continue reading →

6 Myths About HPV

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This is what HPV might look like if you were shrunk down to the size of a virus. Image: University of Arizona

When I was a high school student in the 1990s, human papillomavirus (HPV) didn’t get a lot of screen time in our sex education classes. They slapped a few scary pictures of genital warts on the overhead projector and called it a day, neither mentioning that other strains of HPV could cause cancer, nor elucidating the connection between the virus and Pap testing.

Since the introduction of the HPV vaccine, awareness of the virus has skyrocketed — but with that increased awareness has come a flurry of myths and misinformation.

1 Myth: Condoms are useless in protecting against HPV.
Fact: The consistent use of condoms decreases the risk for HPV transmission.

Many people claim that condoms are worthless protection against HPV, reasoning that because the virus lurks in skin cells and condoms don’t cover the entire genital region, HPV transmission can still result from skin-to-skin contact. There is a kernel of truth here, but it is an exaggeration that condoms are useless. Although latex condoms don’t necessarily cover the entire affected area, using them consistently and correctly lowers the risk of contracting HPV. While latex condoms are even more effective in protecting against fluid-borne sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and chlamydia, they can still reduce the spread of HPV.

One study found that over an eight-month period, females whose male partners used condoms each and every time were 70 percent less likely to acquire HPV than were females whose partners used condoms only 5 percent of the time. This is hardly a case against condoms!

Other studies have shown that condom use can promote the regression of both cervical-cell abnormalities and penile lesions, as well as increase the speed at which HPV is cleared by the immune system. Put in plainer English, even if you’re already infected with a cancer-causing strain of HPV, using condoms can decrease your chances of developing cervical or penile cancer.

2 Myth: If you abstain from sex until marriage, you don’t have to worry about STDs, including HPV.
Fact: Even if you only have had one sexual partner, you can still acquire an STD. Continue reading →

What the Holidays Mean for Your Sexual Health

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The following guest post comes to us via Morganne Rosenhaus, community engagement coordinator for Planned Parenthood Arizona.

The holidays bring a lot of joy, a lot of yummy treats, and, apparently, a lot of sex.

Rumor has it that during the holidays, we are all increasingly likely to have sex. Perhaps it’s the merry spirit of the holidays or maybe it’s the abundance of holiday parties. It’s tough to discern exactly what it is that accounts for this increase in sex, but the “why” is not nearly as important as the “how.”

Yes, exactly. How are people having sex? Are they having safe and protected sex? Are they having consensual sex? For Planned Parenthood Arizona, the “how” is the most important part.

As an organization that seeks to provide honest information and compassionate care to patients, the “how” matters to us. We want the men, women, and young people we serve to be healthy — to have healthy relationships and to have safe sex.

As one of the largest reproductive health care providers in Arizona, serving more than 60,000 patients each year, it is important to us that our patients have the tools they need to make the best decisions for themselves and their families when it comes to reproductive health.

At the end of the day, Planned Parenthood Arizona is here to help you have a safe, but enjoyable holiday season! Here are some simple steps to stay healthy and protect your reproductive health this holiday season:

  • Use condoms. You can get condoms at any Planned Parenthood Arizona health center.
  • Back up your birth control with emergency contraception. Get Plan B now, just in case your Plan A doesn’t work out like you expected. Yep, we have Plan B too.
  • Start off the New Year healthy by making an appointment to get your annual check up, including an STD screening, at your local Planned Parenthood Arizona health center.

There are 13 Planned Parenthood Arizona health centers throughout Arizona. Be sure to check and see if you have one near you at www.ppaz.org and call 602-277-PLAN (7526) in Phoenix, 520-408-PLAN (7526) in Tucson, or toll-free 855-207-PLAN (7526) from anywhere else in the state to make an appointment today.

So, does the holiday season really correlate with an uptick in passion? The jury is still out on that rumor. But it sure is something more exciting than holiday socks to look forward to each year!

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • Better late than never: Pregnant women in the military who were victims of rape will now have access to abortion. (HuffPo)
  • A new condom, which delivers an anti-HIV drug and dissolves after use, is being developed! (i09)
  • Ireland is finally going to legalize life-saving abortions after their complicity in the death of a 31-year-old woman. (ABC News)
  • The Washington Post is dropping knowledge on how Planned Parenthood rocked the 2012 elections. (WaPo)
  • What happens to women who are denied abortions? Nothing good. (i09)
  • Deaths related to unsafe abortions and abortion bans around the world are wildly underestimated. (Salon)
  • Further proving they could give a damn about post-born children, Michigan lawmakers eliminate tax credit for children, prefer tax credit for fetuses. (Jezebel)
  • Pediatrics Group Calls for Easier Access to Emergency Contraception (ABC News)
  • Mississippi’s sole abortion clinic lives to fight another day. (CRR)
  • Another day, another moron talking out of his keister about rape — this time it’s a California judge who says that a woman’s body can shut down to prevent itself from being raped. (Guardian)
  • Our beloved home, Arizona, has launched a manipulative government website to shame women out of getting abortions. (Jezebel)
  • A new study shows women who waited 15 years after their first period to have children had 60 percent less chance of developing an aggressive form of breast cancer. (The Atlantic)
  • Dear guy who founded Domino’s: Your religious beliefs should have no impact on the reproductive health of your female employees. Oh, and another thing — your pizza sucks. (The Daily Meal)
  • Petty, imbecilic Karen Handel, formerly of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, wants the world to know that Planned Parenthood hijacked the color pink from them. They owned the color, after all. (Feministe)