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As if you haven't had enough of what I'm about to tell you in various high school and college classes: practicing safe sex is very important. It helps to prevent or minimize the chances that you will get a potentially nasty, painful, and sometimes incurable disease.
That's what this lesson will be about - the important points about the different major types of diseases you can get from unprotected sex, what symptoms and signs to expect, and what the treatment options are.
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), aka sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), are terms for a disease that is passed from an already infected person during sex. Easy enough.
Sexually transmitted diseases are transmitted through a wide variety of ways, including oral sex, vaginal sex, and anal sex. Some of these diseases can also be transmitted by coming into contact with blood that is deluged with the infectious agent.
What's very important to note is that you can get an STD from a person who is showing no signs or symptoms of the disease. Just because you can't see it, that doesn't mean it's not there! This is because the STDs are caused by microscopic - invisible to the naked eye - organisms. Namely, bacteria and viruses.
Despite all the warnings about having safe sex and screening for STDs, literally millions of people in the U.S. alone get STDs they've never had before.
Let's first go over the different kinds of bacterial STDs these individuals may have caught.
The first major one is called chlamydia. This is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and is caused by a bacterium called Chlamydia trachomatis. It's so common that it causes about four million new cases every year in the U.S. alone.
Chlamydia usually causes no symptoms. But again, that doesn't mean it can't be passed on to another person. Chlamydia can cause pain during urination, itching around the sexual organs of a person, and, critically, a problem called pelvic inflammatory disease in women. This problem can lead to infertility in women affected with chlamydia. This is why treatment with antibiotics, drugs that kill bacteria, is very important.
Other than chlamydia, an infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, called gonorrhea, can also result in burning during urination. Additionally, gonorrhea causes a wonderful colorful discharge from the penis in men. It's usually a pretty yellow, green, or white color. Oh, and if that's not bad enough for a man, gonorrhea can also cause the testicles to become very painful.
But women shouldn't laugh at the guys for that. Women with gonorrhea also have pain during urination, and, if left untreated, gonorrhea can result in the inability to have children, just like chlamydia.
Speaking of children, gonorrhea (like many STDs) is an infection that can be passed from mother to child during childbirth. This is why if you have any of these signs or symptoms, make sure to get treated with antibiotics ASAP.
Finally, the last major bacterial STD I'd like to discuss is called syphilis. Syphilis is an STD caused by a bacterium known as Treponema pallidum. Syphilis is the STD that is famously known for causing a painless sore, called a chancre, at the point where the bacterium enters the body. The problem with syphilis is that it likes to disappear inside the body for sometimes decades on end without causing the person any trouble. However, when it reappears, it ends up causing everything from blindness to difficulty walking to dementia and eventually death. This is why the infection must be stopped right away with antibiotics, just like gonorrhea and chlamydia need to be.
Well, enough of the bacterial stuff. It's time we move on to the viral STDs. For some, the names here may ring a bell more so than for the bacterial sections.
The most famous viral STD is known as HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, which ends up causing AIDS, a problem that results in immune system compromise. This is because HIV destroys white blood cells known as CD4+ T cells. When these cells are destroyed, a person is more susceptible to a secondary infection by another virus or bacterium. Unlike the bacterial stuff we discussed before, HIV/AIDS has no known cure or magic pill, a la an antibiotic. This is why combinations of different drugs, known as antiretroviral therapy, is used to stave off AIDS as a result of HIV.
While HIV is devastating, especially if left untreated, another viral STD is also quite a significant problem and also has no cure. This is known as genital herpes, a sexually transmitted infection mainly caused by a virus called herpes simplex virus 2. This virus is in the same family that causes the cold sores that pop up on your lip for everyone to see. Except genital herpes causes sores in the unspeakable regions down below. Again, there's no cure for herpes. Medication can be taken to minimize or shorten outbreaks of these sores, but you will not be cured. These medicines are called antivirals, because they target the virus causing this disease, although not always very effectively so.
A further virus that causes problems is known as the human papillomavirus (HPV). This is a virus that has been linked to causing warts and cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer in women, after breast cancer, and therefore is nothing to laugh about. If genital sores and painful urination don't scare you, hopefully now I've got your attention as to the seriousness of viral STDs. There is no cure for the virus itself, and therefore treatment is aimed at whatever problems HPV causes, including the cancer. However, importantly, you should be aware that there is a safe and effective vaccine that is available that can help protect you against the diseases HPV causes.
This lesson taught you about many different important sexually transmitted infections (or STIs), also known as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which are both terms for a disease that is passed from an already infected person during sex.
STDs can be transmitted through any type of sex, be it vaginal, oral, or anal.
Chlamydia is one of these STDs. This is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and is caused by a bacterium called Chlamydia trachomatis. It may cause pelvic inflammatory disease in women. This is why treatment with antibiotics, drugs that kill bacteria, is very important for bacterial STDs, including chlamydia.
Other than chlamydia, an infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, called gonorrhea, can result in infertility in women and can be passed from mother to child during childbirth.
The last major bacterial STD we discussed is called syphilis. Syphilis is an STD caused by a bacterium known as Treponema pallidum. Syphilis is the STD that is famously known for causing a painless sore, called a chancre, at the point where the bacterium enters the body. It also loves to reappear after decades of silence to cause a very devastating death.
The viral STDs are no less devastating. One is known as HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, which ends up causing AIDS, a problem that results in immune system compromise. This is why combinations of different drugs, known as antiretroviral therapy, are used to stave off AIDS as a result of HIV.
Another viral STD is genital herpes, a sexually transmitted infection mainly caused by a virus called herpes simplex virus 2. Herpes causes genital sores that cannot be cured but may be controlled with antiviral therapy.
Finally, we went over the human papillomavirus (HPV). This is a virus that has been linked to causing warts and cervical cancer. There is no treatment for HPV itself, but there is a vaccine that can help prevent the diseases that it causes.
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