Tag Archives: reproductive system

STD Awareness: Is Chlamydia Bad?

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chlamydiaPerhaps your sexual partner has informed you that they have been diagnosed with chlamydia, and you need to get tested, too. Maybe you’ve been notified by the health department that you might have been exposed to chlamydia. And it’s possible that you barely know what chlamydia even is, let alone how much you should be worried about it.

Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) out there, especially among young people. It can be spread by oral, vaginal, and anal sex, particularly when condoms or dental dams were not used correctly or at all. It is often a “silent” infection, meaning that most people with chlamydia don’t experience symptoms — you can’t assume you don’t have it because you feel fine, and you can’t assume your partner doesn’t have it because they look fine. If you’re sexually active, the best way to protect yourself is to know your partner’s STD status and to practice safer sex.

Chlamydia increases risk for HIV, leads to fertility and pregnancy problems, and might increase cancer risk.

The good news about chlamydia is that it’s easy to cure — but first, you need to know you have it! And that’s why it’s important for sexually active people to receive regular STD screening. Left untreated, chlamydia can increase risk of acquiring HIV, can hurt fertility in both males and females, can be harmful during pregnancy, and might even increase risk for a certain type of cancer. So why let it wreak havoc on your body when you could just get tested and take a quick round of antibiotics?

To find out just how seriously you should take chlamydia, let’s answer a few common questions about it.

Can Chlamydia Increase HIV Risk?

Chlamydia does not cause HIV. Chlamydia is caused by a type of bacteria, while HIV is a virus that causes a fatal disease called AIDS. However, many STDs, including chlamydia, can increase risk for an HIV infection, meaning that someone with an untreated chlamydia infection is more likely to be infected with HIV if exposed to the virus. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Gonorrhea, Women, and the Pre-Antibiotic Era

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Penicillin, the first cure for gonorrhea, was developed for mass production in the 1940s.

Penicillin, the first reliable cure for gonorrhea, was mass produced in the 1940s.

It’s Women’s History Month, a time to reflect on the achievements of women worldwide — like Margaret Sanger, Rosalind Franklin, and Florence Nightingale, or contemporary heroes like Wangari Maathai. But it may also be a time to examine some of the sadder aspects of womanhood, including the increased burden gonorrhea imposes on women. While gonorrhea is no picnic for anyone, it wreaks the most havoc in female reproductive tracts. In fact, before antibiotics, gonorrhea was a leading cause of infertility — one 19th century physician attributed 90 percent of female infertility to gonorrhea. Not only that, but the effects of gonorrhea could seriously reduce a woman’s overall quality of life.

With gonorrhea becoming more resistant to antibiotics, the CDC warns of a return to the pre-antibiotic era.

Gonorrhea is described by written records dating back hundreds of years B.C. Ancient Greeks treated it with cold baths, massage, “cooling” foods, and vinegar. In the Middle Ages, Persians might have recommended sleeping in a cool bed with a metal plate over the groin. A bit to the west, Arabs tried to cure gonorrhea with injections of vinegar into the urethra. Kings of medieval England might have had their gonorrhea treated with injections of breast milk, almond milk, sugar, and violet oil.

Although gonorrhea is as ancient an STD as they come, because women rarely have symptoms while men usually do, for much of history it was mostly discussed in terms of men. The name gonorrhea itself derives from the ancient Greek words for “seed flow” — gonorrhea was thought to be characterized by the leakage of semen from the penis. This confusion inspired many misguided notions throughout the millennia, such as the idea that almost all women carried gonorrhea and transmitted it to their unwitting male partners. Continue reading →

Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 19: Prostate Exams for Cancer Screening

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prostateWelcome 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.

It’s Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. This type of cancer strikes 1 out of 5 Americans with prostates. There are two common screening tests for it — and Planned Parenthood Arizona offers both of them. The first test, and the subject of this post, is the prostate exam. The second is the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test — which has both benefits and drawbacks, and which will be the subject of a future post.

Here’s the good news/bad news: Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of men’s cancer deaths, but it also has very high survival rates when detected and treated early — a five-year survival rate of almost 100 percent.

What’s a prostate?

A normal prostate is a one-ounce, walnut-sized gland that is part of the male reproductive system. It manufactures fluid that is mixed with sperm to create semen, which is the product of ejaculation. However, the gland can often enlarge, especially later in life. Since the prostate is nestled right in there with the bladder and the urethra, when it grows in size it can block the flow of urine (it can also cause sexual problems). An enlarged prostate, also called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), can mimic the symptoms of prostate cancer — but it’s not cancer. It may be treated surgically, however.

Am I at risk for prostate cancer?

While prostate cancer is common, there are a few factors that can increase your risk even more. These include:

  • age (two-thirds of prostate cancers occur in people 65 years of age or older)
  • genetics (a family history of prostate cancer — especially if a father or brother developed prostate cancer before the age of 65)
  • being of African-American descent (prostate cancer is more common in African Americans than in Americans of other races) Continue reading →

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 →