Tag Archives: gonorrhea

STD Awareness: “Can STDs Lead to Infertility?”

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Being diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) can be upsetting. Some take it as evidence that they’ve been cheated on; others wonder if they can ever have sex again. Some people who have long dreamed of having children might worry about what impact, if any, their STD could have on future fertility. The bad news is that certain STDs can make it difficult or impossible to have children. But the good news is that STDs are avoidable — and regular STD screening can ensure that infections are caught and treated before they have time to do damage.

It’s common for STDs not to have symptoms, and infections can cause tissue damage — unbeknownst to you!

Fertility can be impacted in several ways. The ability to become pregnant and bear children can be affected by a condition called pelvic inflammatory disease, which is usually caused by untreated gonorrhea or chlamydia infections. If you have a cervix, an infection with a high-risk strain of HPV can require invasive treatment, which in some cases might affect the ability to carry a pregnancy. If you have a penis, an untreated STD might lead to epididymitis, which in extreme cases can cause infertility.

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)

Many sexually transmitted infections are localized; for example, the bacteria that cause gonorrhea usually just hang out on the cervix. But untreated infections can spread on their own, and bacteria can also hitch a ride on sperm or the upward flow of a douche, which can take them into the cervix, through the uterus, down the fallopian tubes, and to the ovaries. At any of these locations, microbes can stake claim on your reproductive real estate, establishing colonies deep in your reproductive system. As these colonies grow, the bacterial infections become more widespread, and can cause scarring and other tissue damage. To keep these interlopers from getting through the front door, sexually active people can use barrier methods, such as latex condoms — especially with spermicides. There’s no need to host an open house for sexually transmitted bacteria in your uterus. Continue reading →

April Is STD Awareness Month: Get Yourself Talking, Get Yourself Tested

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GYT2013April is upon us, and you know what that means. It’s STD Awareness Month, so it’s time to GYT. Time to what?

Get
Yourself
Tested

GYT is a national campaign collaboration between Planned Parenthood, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MTV, and Kaiser Family Foundation, which aims to bring greater awareness to STD testing. As part of GYT, Planned Parenthood Arizona wants to make it as easy as possible for you to be screened for sexually transmitted diseases. That’s why participating PPAZ locations are offering a $35 discount on full STD screenings throughout the month of April. Visit us at select health centers in the Phoenix metro area, Tucson, Flagstaff, and Prescott Valley.

In April, participating Planned Parenthood Arizona locations offer discounted full STD screening.

STDs can be transmitted by sexual activity — vaginal, anal, or oral sex, as well as activities that involve skin-to-skin contact. You might think you don’t need to be tested for STDs, but if you are sexually active, STD screening is an important part of maintaining your sexual health — in fact, the CDC recommends it. Most people with STDs don’t have symptoms — no telltale sores, blisters, bumps, warts, or discharge; no itching or burning — which means that it’s possible to have an STD without being aware of it:

  • 3 out of 4 women with chlamydia have no symptoms, and half of men with chlamydia have no symptoms
  • 80 percent of women who have gonorrhea have no symptoms
  • HIV symptoms usually take around a decade to appear

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 →

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 →

Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 11: Diagnosing and Treating Epididymitis

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Welcome 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 doesn’t know about.

Planned Parenthood Arizona treats epididymitis.This statement might raise a few questions:

Q: What’s epididymitis?
A: Epididymitis is the inflammation, or swelling, of the epididymis, resulting in pain in the scrotum.
Q: That’s great, but what the heck is an epididymis?
A: The epididymis is a tube that is connected to the testicle, and is where sperm are stored before ejaculation. The epididymis is 12 to 15 feet long, but is coiled tightly enough to fit inside the scrotum alongside the testes!

Chlamydia causes 70 percent of epididymitis cases in young heterosexuals. This STD is easily treated but frequently asymptomatic — and prevented by condoms.

So, basically, epididymitis is a condition that can strike anyone whose reproductive anatomy features an epididymis. It is generally caused by a bacterial infection — which may be sexually transmitted, such as gonorrhea and chlamydia, or may not be sexually transmitted, such as tuberculosis. Very rarely, epididymitis can be caused by other pathogens, such as viruses, fungi, or parasites. Inflammation of the epididymis can also be caused by the heart medication amiodarone (also known as Pacerone).

Epididymitis most commonly affects males between the ages of 14 and 35. Risk factors, regardless of age, include being uncircumcised, a history of prostate or urinary tract infections, having had surgery in the urinary tract, having a history of a neurogenic bladder, an enlarged prostate, regularly using a catheter, and not using condoms during vaginal or anal intercourse.

The symptoms of epididymitis usually develop over one or two days and can include: Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Antibiotic-Resistant Syphilis

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Treponema pallidum under a microscope. Image: Dr. Edwin P. Ewing, Jr., CDC

The image to your right, with lively yellow splotches against a pale green background, is not a long-lost Jackson Pollack piece, and the dark squiggly lines aren’t strands of paint haphazardly splattered onto a canvas. In fact, those squiggly lines are magnified images of the spiral-shaped bacteria species Treponema pallidum. You might not have heard of T. pallidum, but you’ve probably heard of syphilis, the sexually transmitted disease (STD) that these bacteria cause. While syphilis isn’t as common as other STDs, like chlamydia and HPV, it’s still out there, and occasionally communities experience outbreaks. It’s always best for sexually active people to be screened for STDs and practice safer sex.

The evolution of syphilis strains that are resistant to certain antibiotics underscores the need to use antibiotics properly.

Syphilis can inflict serious long-term damage — in fact, before the introduction of antibiotics, syphilis was the worst STD out there! Known as the Great Pox when it descended upon Europe 500 years ago, it could cause large and painful boils. Eventually, natural selection led to T. pallidum’s evolution into a form with milder symptoms, which benefited the bacteria by enabling its less boil-ridden (and presumably more attractive) human hosts to spread it farther and wider. Nevertheless, the symptoms of syphilis, if present, still include infectious sores, and when the disease goes untreated, it can cause severe, possibly fatal, damage to the nervous system.

Back in the day, there were myriad inadequate “treatments” for syphilis, ranging from straight-up quackery to the use of partially effective but toxic chemicals such as mercury. But a century ago, in 1912, a new arsenic-based chemical called Neosalvarsan was hailed as a “magic bullet.” Unfortunately, this treatment took weeks or even more than a year to administer — and had dangerous side effects. Quack treatments continued to flourish, and it wasn’t until the widespread adoption of penicillin in the 1940s that an effective cure with few side effects was available.

But natural selection endures; in fact, by flooding T. pallidum’s habitat with certain antibiotics, we’ve created an environment that favors the organism’s evolution against us. While not as immediately threatening as antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, syphilis has been quietly evolving resistance to some of the antibiotics we use to treat it. This underscores the importance of using antibiotics correctly and emphasizing safer-sex practices, such as using latex condoms during vaginal or anal intercourse and during oral contact with a penis. Continue reading →

Get Smart About Antibiotics!

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This week we celebrate Get Smart About Antibiotics Week. Antibiotics, or antimicrobials as they are also called, cure bacterial infections by killing bacteria or reducing their ability to reproduce so your own body’s immune system can overcome an infection. Penicillin was the first antibiotic, and was discovered in 1924 by Alexander Fleming. Since its widespread use, beginning in the 1940s, countless lives have been saved from devastating bacterial infections. Talk about a wonder drug!

Improper use of antibiotics can have dangerous consequences.

Since then, different types of antibiotics have been developed to combat many different types of infectious bacteria. Classes of antibiotics include penicillins, cephalosporins, macrolides, fluoroquinolones, aminoglycosides, and others. In each of these classes there are lots of different individual medications. (For example, cephalosporins include the drugs cephalexin, ceftriaxone, cefaclor, and others.) Some antibiotics are broad spectrum, which means they work on many different bacteria. Some are more narrow spectrum, used for specific bacteria.

Antibiotics only work for bacterial infections … not viral infections. They are ineffective at killing viruses. Viral infections include colds, flu, runny noses, most coughs and bronchitis, and sore throats unless they are caused by strep. Sexually transmitted viruses include human papillomavirus (HPV), herpes simplex virus, and HIV. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: “What Are the Symptoms of an STD?”

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“I was treated for chlamydia, but my girlfriend feels fine, so she doesn’t need to get tested.”

“The only time I don’t use condoms is for oral sex, and everything’s been OK ‘down there,’ so getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases would be pointless.”

It’s important to be able to recognize the symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Being savvy about symptoms can push you to get tested right away if you notice that something is amiss. However, being symptom-free can lull you into a false sense of security, especially if you’ve engaged in sexual activities that could have exposed you to an infectious agent. The fact of the matter is that many people with STDs have no symptoms at all. As they say, “The most common symptom of an STD is … no symptom.” Let’s take a look at some common STDs.

The most common symptom of an STD is no symptom.

Bacterial Infections

Bacterial STDs are curable with antibiotics. They include chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis — all of which can be asymptomatic, and all of which can have severe complications when they are not treated in time.

Chlamydia: Around 3 million Americans are infected with chlamydia annually, and the infection is especially common among young people (less than 25 years of age). Chlamydia can infect the penis, vagina, cervix, anus, urethra, eye, or throat. You can be afflicted with a range of symptoms: pain or a burning feeling while urinating; vaginal, cervical, or penile discharge; swelling around the anus, testicles, or vagina; and more.

However, you’re much more likely not to experience any symptoms at all — most people with chlamydia are unaware they have it. Three out of four women with chlamydia have no symptoms, and half of men with chlamydia have no symptoms. Left untreated, chlamydia can become a serious health threat. Long-term complications might lead to fertility problems and arthritis. Continue reading →