One of the most common STDs that get transferred through sexual activity is gonorrhea. Centers for Disesase Control and Prevention says that there are approximately 700,000 new cases of gonorrhea. And only half of the cases that arise actually notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of people who contract the STD are between the ages of 18-35.
While most STDs do not care who are you are, gonorrhea is likely to happen more in certain groups of people. High rates of gonorrhea have been reported in:
Adolescents and young adults
People (often poor) living in urban areas and Southern states
African Americans
Drug users
Gonorrhea is transmitted through vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Women have a higher chance of contracting gonorrhea than men, and the STD may even be transmitted to a baby from a mother when pregnant. There are also different symptoms for men and women.
Some common symptoms of gonorrhea in women are:
need to urinate often
infection of the cervix
itching and burning of the vagina
bleeding between menstrual cycles
In men, common symptoms of gonorrhea are:
Pain or burning during urination in most men
Thick, yellow penile discharge 50% of the time
Inflammation or infection of a duct in the testicles
Infection or inflammation of the prostate
If you believe that you could possibly have gonorrhea, visit your doctor ASAP.
In a recent survey that was done, the numbers of people who feel they are not at risk for getting an STD. This just shows how naive some people can be.
15 million new STD cases occur each year.
40 million Americans carry the herpes virus.
70 million Americans are currently living with an incurable sexually transmitted disease (STD)
In the survey done, most people reported that they believe only 1 in 10 people have an STD, when the truth is 1 in 5 do, and 1 in 4 are going to get an STD throughout their lives. In the same survey, only 14% of men and 8% of women feel that they are at risk for getting an STD. People need to be better educated about STD statistics so that they are better aware of how at risk they are for contracting one.
Many people wonder whether STDs have an effect on pregnancy.Well the answer is that STDs can have a majority of the same consequences as women who are pregnant and do not have an STD. STDs can cause cervical and other cancers, chronic hepatitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and other complications.A big thing that women with an STD should be aware of is that their STD can be transferred from the women to the baby before, during, or after birth.
There are many harmful side effects of STDs that can harm the baby.The baby may be a stillborn, have low birth weight, eye infections, pneumonia, infection in the baby’s blood stream, neurological damage, blindness, deafness, acute hepatitis, meningitis, chronic liver disease, and cirrhosis.If you are a women with an STD, you should seriously consider whether or not you want to bring a baby into the world based on all the risks.
I found an interesting article about a new study that was done. Apparently, recent studies showed that a bedmate’s activities may have more to do with whether or not you get an STD than your own behavior does! The article shows some red flag behavior to show if you are having with someone of high risk behavior. High risk behavior could ultimately effect you in a bad way and put you at risk for catching an STD. You may be low risk when it comes to sex (always using a condom), while your partner is high risk (pushing for a threesome). Check out these signs and decide whether or not you are at risk:
Your partner had a problem with alcohol or marijuana
Your partner had been in jail
Your partner was 5 years older or younger
Your partner had had sex with someone else in the past year
Your partner had an STD in the last year
If any of these signs ring a bell, think twice before your high risk partner starts to put you in danger of an STD. To read the whole article go the the link at the bottom of the page.
Thanks to new HPV commercials, more people are aware that cervical cancer can be caused by an STD. It has been pushed that people should be getting tested and vaccinated for cervical cancer. Unfortunately, because of the new info, people have added cervical cancer to the “dirty disease” list. It is not feared that less women will get tested or feel comfortable enough admit their results. This will start being a problem because a lot of patients who do have cervical cancer will be thought of as “dirty,” which is wrong. This happened to a 33 year-old-women who was diagnosed with cervical cancer, “I have no family history of cervical cancer; I’ve never had any STDs; I haven’t had multiple sex partners; and I don’t HPV. Perhaps, when people are aware that one has cervical cancer, they won’t look at it as being a “dirty woman” disease like my family did.” It is sad that we are living in such a judgmental world, but that is just the way it is. People need to know all of the facts before they make such rude accusations. Here is the entire article: http://www.examiner.com/x-4763-Seattle-Healthy-Living-Examiner~y2009m6d14-Cervical-cancer-shame-and-fear