Original URL: http://life.familyeducation.com/sex/safety/36496.html

The ABCs of STDs

by Barbara Cooke

"We should make the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think our children should be having sex."

Do you agree with Jack Handey's "Deep Thought"? Let reality intrude for a moment and face the fact that many of our teenagers are having sex at a younger age than ever before and with more partners.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that nearly three out of four high school seniors have sexual intercourse by the time they graduate.

In the United States, an estimated 15.3 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) occur each year, at least one-quarter of them among teenagers. Studies have shown that teenagers are the largest population affected by STDs; approximately two-thirds of people who acquire STDs in the United States are younger than 25. Young adults aged 15 to 19, both male and female, have the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea, the two most common sexually transmitted diseases.

Yet, it's not shocking that teens regard the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases the same way they see the dangers of tobacco: "It won't happen to me, so let's change the subject." Many people think that someone who contracts a sexually transmitted disease (STD) is "dirty" or promiscuous, but that's totally wrong.

Any teenager or adult who is sexually active can catch a disease like herpes. And while deadly HIV and AIDS have understandably garnered the most headlines over the past 10 years, teens are more vulnerable to contracting genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and human papillomavirus (HPV), from a sexual encounter.

It's vital that you and your teen are aware of the risks of sex. Click on the links below to learn more about a specific STD, then print the whole article and share it with your son or daughter.

Some Scary Statistics

Experts now warn that a chilling 75 percent of Americans between the ages of 15 and 49 (yes, that includes many parents of teens, folks) may be infected with human papillomavirus, or HPV. There are close to 100 strains of the virus, and about one-third are transmitted by sexual contact.

HPV has been linked to genital warts for many years, but it's only recently been identified as the precursor of cervical cancer. And that old stand-by, condom use, does nothing to protect against the transmission of the virus.

Despite the emphasis on "safe sex" to prevent AIDS, genital herpes has increased five-fold since the 1970s among white teenagers, and doubled among whites in their 20's, reports the CDC. About 1 in 5 Americans over the age of 12 has the disease. Most frightening is that teens are in the greatest risk group -- and they usually don't know they have contracted herpes!

A study at the University of California, San Francisco, of gay and bisexual men revealed that almost 10 percent of them had contracted AIDS through oral sex. Since this has become the activity of "choice" by many younger teens who assumed it was risk-free, the message must be clear that there is no such thing as "safe sex."

HIV/AIDS
AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is caused by HIV, a virus that attacks the body's immune system and results in fatal infections and cancers. Experts estimate that every hour, at least one American becomes infected with HIV. There is no cure for AIDS.

In the United States:

over 640,000 cases of AIDS were reported to the CDC by the end of 1997.
Of those cases, 60 percent of patients had died by then.
As of December 1998, an estimated 33.4 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS.
The cumulative AIDS-related deaths worldwide as of December 1997 numbered approximately 13.9 million.
At the end of 1999, the CDC said there were over 733,000 people with AIDS.
Of those cases, 430,441 people died.

What to look for:
It can take up to 10 years for symptoms of (full-blown) AIDS to develop. Symptoms include: unexplained weight loss, fevers, headaches, drenching night sweats, fatigue, severe diarrhea, shortness of breath, and difficulty swallowing. The symptoms tend to last for weeks or months at a time and do not go away without treatment.

How can you tell?
The only way to tell if you have been infected with HIV is by taking an HIV blood test. The test can be performed at an AIDS testing site, a doctor's office, or a clinic. HIV testing includes pretest counseling and an explanation of the benefits of testing. You may want to seek anonymous testing. When you undergo anonymous testing, you're identified only by number, and you're the only one who finds out the test results. The CDC National AIDS Hotline, 1-800-342-AIDS, can help you find a test site in your area. Home test kits are available but with home kits, there's no post-test counseling if the results come back positive.

What is the treatment?
There is no cure for HIV infection or AIDS. Treatment is complex but is shown to prolong life. Health care providers try to help prevent other infections such as pneumonia.

Prevention
Abstinence is the only way to avoid the sexual transmission of AIDS. HIV is spread in two main ways: through unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected person, or through sharing drug needles with an infected person. Women infected with HIV can pass the virus to their babies during pregnancy or birth or through breast milk. Latex condoms have been shown to prevent HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. Personal items such as razors and toothbrushes also may be blood-contaminated, and shouldn't be shared.

It's important to know that HIV is not passed by everyday social contact. Touching, hugging, and shaking hands with an infected person is safe. It's a myth that you can get HIV by donating blood. A new needle is used for every donor, and you do not come into contact with anyone else's blood.

Donated blood is now always screened for HIV, so the risk of getting it from a blood transfusion in the U.S. is extremely low. Kissing an infected person on the cheek or with dry lips is not a known risk. No cases of AIDS or of HIV infection due to kissing have ever been reported.

Chlamydia Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common bacterial STD in the United States. The CDC estimates that 4 million new cases occur annually in this country.

What to look for:
Chlamydia is known as the "silent epidemic" because as many as 85 percent of infected women and 40 percent of infected men with chlamydial infections report no symptoms, according to the CDC. If not adequately treated, 20 to 40 percent of women with chlamydia develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which in turn causes problems such as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic pelvic pain.

When there are symptoms, look for discharge from the penis or vagina and a burning sensation when urinating. Women may have lower abdominal pain or pain during intercourse and bleeding between menstrual periods. Men may feel burning and itching around the opening of the penis and/or pain and swelling in the testicles.

How can you tell?
There are two kinds of test for chlamydia. One involves collecting a small amount of fluid from an infected site (cervix or penis) with a cotton swab. These tests are universally available. New tests, which use only urine samples, will be available soon and will make testing much easier and less uncomfortable.

What is the treatment?
There has been major progress in the treatment of chlamydia with antibiotics over the past few years. A single dose of azithromycin or a week of doxycycline (twice daily) are the most commonly used treatments.

How Can I Prevent It?
You can get and spread chlamydia through unprotected vaginal and anal sex.

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Infection
An estimated 20 million people in the United States are infected with HPV, and as many as 5.5 million new infections occur each year. Cervical infection of HPV is associated with more than 80 percent of cases of invasive cervical cancer. However, only some strains of the virus can lead to this disease.

What To look for:
Most HPV infections are subclinical, meaning that there are no visible signs. Subclinical HPV infections can cause abnormal cell growth on a woman or girl's cervix. Visible signs of the infection include genital warts, which range from soft, pink, and cauliflower-like, to hard, smooth, yellow-gray warts. In women, they may develop inside the vagina, where they are hard to detect. They may also appear on the lips of the vagina or around the anus.

In men, they usually appear on the penis, but are sometimes found on the scrotum (the sac that holds the testicles) or around the anus. If there are visible signs, you will notice them within 3 weeks to 6 months after having sex with someone who is infected. This time period can make it difficult to track the infection as it is passed from partner to partner.

How can you tell?
Your health care provider can check closely to detect warts on men and women. For women, the Pap smear is designed to detect precancerous changes in the cervix and may show changes caused by HPV infection.

What is the treatment?
There are several ways to remove visible genital warts, but the underlying HPV infection can't be cured by medical treatment. The virus that causes genital warts stays in your body and can cause warts to appear in the future. A doctor can get rid of smaller warts by freezing them (cryotherapy) or by burning them off with an acidic chemical such as podophyllin. In severe cases, wart treatment may require laser surgery. All three procedures can typically be done in a doctor's office with local anesthetic.

How can I prevent it?
Genital warts are transmitted when the HPV virus is passed from an infected person to another person during sex. People who have many sexual partners put themselves at higher risk. Latex condoms do not provide protection. Regular yearly Pap smears are necessary for any sexually active females to detect abnormal changes in the cervix that can lead to cervical cancer. Thankfully, there is now a vaccine for the most dangerous strains of HPV, and it is available to young women through their physicians.

The Consortium of State Physician Resource Councils estimates that 5.5 million people will be infected each year. Now Congress is considering an amendment to a women's health bill that will add a warning label to condoms stating that they do not prevent HPV transmission and linking HPV to cancer.

Each year, almost 13,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 5,000 die from the disease. Yet critics note that early detection from annual Pap smear tests result in an almost 100 percent cure rate. And while genital warts are ugly, they are not associated with cervical cancer. Health experts from the CDC and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health believe that most HPV infections are banished by the immune system within several years.

Genital Herpes About 1 in 5 Americans over age 12 -- approximately 45 million people -- are infected with HSV-2, the virus that causes genital herpes. The CDC estimates that up to 1 million new HSV-2 infections may be transmitted each year in the U.S.

Genital herpes is a highly infectious, chronic, and lifelong viral infection. Each year, there are about 500,000 new cases of symptomatic herpes, but there are even more newly infected people who have no symptoms. There is no cure for genital herpes.

What to look for:
During initial exposure, symptoms can appear in 2 to 20 days after contact, but sometimes they don't show up for months or years. First symptoms are itching, tingling, and aching around the genitals with flu-like symptoms. Then fluid-filled herpes blisters appear on or in the vagina, penis, anus, or mouth. They're very painful and may crack and become blistered. Sometimes these lesions bleed or ooze fluid.

The initial outbreak may last up to two weeks and go away never to return. But while the blisters heal, the virus still lives in the nerves at the base of the skull or the nerve cells throughout the body. A new outbreak can be triggered by stress, sickness, or if a person is run-down, tired, or has too much sun. Subsequent attacks are usually less severe.

How can you tell?
For testing, the doctor will collect a small amount of fluid from the sores and send it to a lab to see if the herpes virus is present. It may take up to 2 weeks to get the results. If no sores are present, testing may be difficult.

What is the treatment?
Although you can never "get rid of" herpes, you can treat the symptoms. Treatment of genital herpes outbreaks, especially when started early, shortens the duration of the outbreak and reduces the symptoms. The drugs used are acyclovir and, more recently, famcyclovir and valacyclovir.

How can I prevent it?
You can get and spread herpes through oral, anal, and vaginal sex. Remember that many genital herpes infections are spread by people with no noticeable symptoms. You can get the herpes virus from kissing, touching, and caressing infected areas.

Gonorrhea In this country, an estimated 650,000 cases of gonorrhea, caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae, occur each year. About half of all infections in women and men have no symptoms. If not adequately treated, 10 to 40 percent of women infected with gonorrhea develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which can lead to infertility.

What to look for:
Symptoms may include discharge from the penis or vagina, the need to urinate often, burning or pain when urinating, and in women, bleeding between monthly periods.

How can you tell?
The only way to find out whether or not you have gonorrhea is to get tested. The test is simple: The doctor takes a sample of fluid from the penis or vagina and sends it to a lab.

What is the treatment?
Gonorrhea is treated with antibiotics, but incomplete treatment can result in serious problems later, such as chronic lower abdominal pain, sterility, tubal pregnancy, and painful joints.

How can I prevent it?
You can get and spread gonorrhea through oral, anal, and vaginal sex.

Trichomoniasis
Globally, an estimated 170 million people acquired Trichomonas vaginalis, a sexually transmitted parasite, in 1997. Approximately 5 million cases of trichomoniasis occur annually in the U.S. Trichomoniasis ("trich") is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD), attacking 2 to 3 million Americans every year.

What to look for:
Women may experience itching, burning, vaginal or vulval redness, unusual vaginal discharge, frequent and/or painful urination, discomfort during intercourse, and abdominal pain, worsening after menstruation. Mens' symptoms can include unusual penile discharge, painful urination, and tingling inside the penis, but many men have no symptoms for years.

How can you tell?
The healthcare provider will collect a sample of secretions from the penis or vagina and send it to a lab to see if trichomonas is present. It may take up to 2 weeks to get the result. Some providers can do a quick office examination of vaginal secretions.

What is the treatment
Trichomoniasis can be treated with antibiotics, usually a single dose of metronidazole (Flagyl).

How can I prevent it?
Trichomoniasis is spread through sexual contact. Using condoms (or another barrier method) provides some protection, as does knowing your partner's sexual history. Trichomonas can also survive on infected sheets and towels, and could possibly be transmitted by sharing them. It is especially important for the male partner to be treated -- even though he is almost always asymptomatic.

Syphilis
Syphilis is a serious disease that can be debilitating and even result in death if left untreated. There are an estimated 120,000 new cases of syphilis in the U.S. each year.

What to look for:
Syphilis has three stages. During the first stage, a painless sore may appear at the spot where the bacteria first entered the body (usually from 10 to 90 days after sexual contact with an infected person). This sore may appear around or in the vagina, on the penis, or inside the mouth or anus. Sores inside the vagina or anus are often unnoticed and may disappear on their own if not treated, but the bacterial infection remains.

The second stage occurs from 3 weeks to 3 months after the primary stage and includes flu-like symptoms and possible hair loss. Some people experience a rash on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, as well as over the entire body. Although extremely rare, tertiary syphilis can appear 3 to 10 years or more after the first and second stages. Symptoms of this stage may include skin lesions, mental deterioration, loss of balance and vision, loss of sensation, shooting pains in the legs, and heart disease.

How can you tell?
A simple blood test can usually determine whether or not you have the disease. However, if you become infected 2 to 3 weeks prior to testing, the blood test might not be sensitive enough to pick it up.

What is the treatment?
Syphilis can be treated with proper antibiotics, such as penicillin injections.

How can I prevent it?
You can get and spread syphilis through oral, anal, and vaginal sex.

Hepatitis B
An estimated 77,000 cases of sexually transmitted hepatitis B infection occur annually in the U.S. Approximately 750,000 Americans are living with this infection of the liver, that is caused by a virus that is 100 times more infectious than HIV.

Most people recover, but a few become chronic carriers with increased risk of serious problems later, such as permanent liver disease and cancer of the liver.

What to look for:
Symptoms usually appear within 2 to 6 weeks after contact. They can include poor appetite; nausea; vomiting; headaches; general malaise; jaundice (yellowing of eyes and skin); dark, tea-colored urine; and light-colored stools. Even without symptoms, you can pass the virus to others. Chronic carriers carry the hepatitis B virus for the rest of their lives and may unknowingly pass it to their sex partners.

How can you tell?
Routine testing is not usually indicated unless the patient is symptomatic from jaundice or has had recent sexual exposure to someone with hepatitis. Sometimes, serological testing is done as part of a hepatitis B vaccination program. However, if you've already had hepatitis B, you don't need to be vaccinated. Remember that 90 to 95 percent of people who have hepatitis B will fully recover.

What is the treatment?
For acute hepatitis B, treatment includes rest and diet. There are some new treatments for chronic hepatitis, including interferon. If your sex partner or a member of your household is found to have hepatitis B, you should consult your doctor or health care provider and get immunized. Immunization may include hepatitis B immune globulin and hepatitis B vaccination series.

How can I prevent it?
Like AIDS, the hepatitis B virus is spread through contact with infected blood or body fluids. You can get hepatitis B from vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse. It also can be passed from an infected mother to her baby during childbirth.

To minimize your risk of contracting hepatitis B, do not share needles or syringes, or instruments used in ear-piercing, tattooing, or hair removal. Do not share toothbrushes or razors. If you have sex, reduce your risk by using condoms. If you are infected, avoid sex and other close contact, such as kissing, until your doctor says it's okay.

Hepatitis B is the only STD that can be effectively prevented by a vaccine. The CDC now recommends vaccination for all newborns in order to prevent infection of hepatitis B later on. Teens are urged to talk to their health-care provider and find out whether vaccinations are recommended.

Add a Comment (0)