Sometimes, the way alternative medicine hawkers trivialise issues
relating to sexually-transmitted infections/diseases is astounding. For
one, they dwell more on obscene description of sexuality; while they
also call STIs the diseases of the socially active persons.
Well,
whether this latter aspect is true or not, the undeniable fact is that
STDs are dangerous infections that can wreak systematic havoc on the
body, internally and externally; and, in extreme cases, they can result
in agonising death.
Epidemiologists say there are more than 20
STDs, including crabs, scabies, genital warts, syphilis, AIDS,
Chlamydia, Herpes, among others.
Researchers say every year,
millions of STDs are passed from person to person, primarily through
sexual contact, though some infections are also transmitted
non-sexually.
They note that because the infections are
sexually-transmitted, people don’t like to talk about them and therefore
leave them untreated.
“Sometimes, the infections will go away;
but usually, an untreated STD will return and the infected person will
suffer grave consequences as a result,” epidemiologist, Mr. Segilola
Araoye, warns.
Doctors also warn that STDs are dangerous for a pregnant woman and her unborn baby.
Family
physician, Dr. Damilare Okikiolu, notes that a pregnant woman with an
STD can infect her baby before, during, or after delivery.
“She may also go into early labour or suffer early rupture of the membranes surrounding the baby in the uterus.”
Worse
still, doctors say, the complications of STIs in pregnant women can
result in cervical cancer and other cancers for the mother. As for the
unborn baby, he may suffer chronic hepatitis, neonatal sepsis
(infection in the blood), damage to the brain, blindness, deafness,
acute hepatitis, meningitis, and chronic liver disease.
Okikiolu
laments that some of the effects of birth-related sexually-transmitted
diseases may not be detected for months or sometimes, even years.
Physicians
warn that there are no vaccines for the prevention of some of these
STDs and that even after a patient must have been treated for any of
them, he or she could still get a new infection if they don’t adhere to
strict sexual health practices.
Okikiolu advises sexually active
people who have more than one partner or those who engage in risky
sexual behaviours to regularly screen for STIs.
While we may not be able to mention all the STDs in the books, a brief examination of some of them would do. So, here we go…
ChlamydiaOkikiolu
says typically, most people who have Chlamydia don’t know they do
because the bacterial infection often has no symptoms, though it’s one
of the most reported STDs.
He warns, “Chlamydia is easy to cure,
but if left untreated, it can affect a woman’s ability to conceive; just
as it can affect the genitals, rectum, eyes and eyelids.
“Indeed,
about 10-15 per cent of women with Chlamydia will develop pelvic
inflammatory disease, which affects the upper genital tract. This may
cause permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding
tissues, and can lead to infertility. It may also lead to ectopic
pregnancy. In men, Chlamydia infection can spread to the testes, and can
result in sterility,” the doctor warns.
The signs and symptoms
of Chlamydia, Okikiolu says, usually include painful urination, lower
abdominal pain, vaginal discharge in women, discharge from the penis in
men, pain during sexual intercourse in women, and testicular pain in
men.”
He warns that any sexually frivolous person can get
Chlamydia, “but female teens are more likely to be infected because of
immature cervix.”
TrichomoniasisThis STI, also
called Trich, presents no symptom, physicians say; and is one of the
most common causes of vaginitis — an irritation of the vulva or vagina.
It takes between three and 28 days for symptoms to appear, if ever they
do. Consequently, victims — especially men — don’t know they have it
until they start having discharge from the urethra, or when they feel
the urge to urinate frequently — often with pain and burning.
Okikiolu
notes that when women have Trich symptoms, they may have frothy, often
unpleasant-smelling vaginal discharge, blood spotting in the discharge,
itching in and around the vagina, and swelling in the groin.
SyphilisThis
STD is one of the most versatile, as it presents in four stages
—primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary — when left untreated.
Okikiolu
explains that, “The primary stage classically presents with firm,
painless, non-itchy skin ulceration (chancre); secondary stage comes
with a diffuse rash which frequently involves the palms of the hands and
soles of the feet. Latent syphilis presents little or no symptoms, but
by the time it graduates to tertiary stage, you can have a soft,
non-cancerous growth (gummas, commonly found in the liver, brain, heart,
skin, bone, testis, and other tissues). These can lead to a variety of
potential problems, including neurological disorders or heart valve
disease.”
Signs and symptoms of syphilis include a firm, round,
small, and painless sore on the genitals, anus, or mouth; or a rash on
the body, especially on the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet,
researchers say.
CrabsThis STD is also called
pubic lice, which physicians describe as “small parasites that feed on
human blood and usually found on the pubic hair.” They can also be found
on other parts of the body where a person has coarse hair, such as
armpits, eyelashes, and facial hair. Crabs rarely infest head hair,
scientists say.
“The most noticeable symptom of crabs is itching
in the pubic area, which usually starts about five days after
infection,” Okikiolu says.
Doctors warn that crabs are also
transmitted non-sexually when one sleeps in an infested bed or uses
infested towel, wears infested cloth or uses an infested toilet seat.
HerpesWhile
all the aforementioned STDs are treatable, not so herpes. Doctors say
“there is no cure for this infection, though treatment can reduce
symptoms and decrease the risk of transmission to another person.”
Okikiolu
says herpes presents no symptoms or have very mild symptoms that go
unnoticed or are mistaken for another skin condition.
The Centres
for Disease Control and Prevention warns that when symptoms do occur,
they typically appear as one or more blisters on or around the genitals,
rectum or mouth. “The blisters break and leave painful sores that may
take two to four weeks to heal. The first time someone has an outbreak,
they may also experience flu-like symptoms such as fever, body aches and
swollen glands.”
As deadly as herpes is, scientists say, the
infection can remain in the body indefinitely; and if a person with
genital herpes touches his/her sores, he may transfer the infection to
another part of the body, including the eyes.
Again, physicians
warn, “The genital sores caused by herpes can bleed easily. When the
sores come into contact with the mouth, vagina, or rectum during sex,
they increase the risk of HIV transmission if either partner is
HIV-infected.”
Genital HPV infectionOkikiolu says
there are more than 40 types of Human Papilloma Virus that not only
infect the male and female genitals, but can also infect the mouth and
throat. Also incurable, as HPV lingers in the body, it can cause serious
health problems such as genital warts and certain cancers, physicians
warn.
Experts say though in about 90 per cent of the cases, HPV
infections go away by themselves within two years, sometimes, they may
persist and cause a variety of serious health problems such as genital
warts, recurrent respiratory papillomatosis — a rare condition in which
warts grow in the throat; cervical cancer, cancer of the vulva, vagina,
penis, or anus; and a type of head/neck cancer called oropharyngeal
cancer (cancer in the back of throat, including the base of the tongue
and tonsils).
culled from Punch
