Proper Protection and STD Myths Share on Tumblr PinExt Proper Protection and STD Myths

By Jennifer Anderson

It’s important to take care of yourself throughout life. You will come across many obstacles in life that you must overcome both mentally and physically and the easiest way to come out on top is with knowledge.

Nobody wants to talk about sexually transmitted diseases but they are very real in every woman’s life. HPV the leading cause of cervical cancer affects over 20 million people in the US alone and it is expected to increase by 6 million people every year. And according to the CDC by the time a women is no longer sexually active 50% will have contracted the disease. These are big numbers and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why screenings and yearly checkups are so important.

One of the reasons HPV is such a prevalent disease in so many lives is because most of the time there are no symptoms at all. Only 10 strains cause genital warts, the easiest symptom to identify, out of over a hundred making it almost impossible to know if you have contracted the disease. On top of that, HPV testing is not part of a routine STD check up and since it’s passed from skin to skin contact. Condoms are not 100% effective as with other STDs. If you’re in a room with ten people, the chance that at least one of those people is infected with HPV is very high, and the chance of it being you can be just as high.

Other STDs such as Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis are part of routine checkups but don’t always have the symptoms that you would think. Syphilis can cause a single sore where the infection entered the body, that doesn’t last very long. It is very possible that you might not notice the small sore and it will heal on its own. After that, you will feel fine and there will be no symptoms for a long time while the disease grows and becomes stronger and harder to fight off. Syphilis can do serious damage to a person’s nervous system if not treated promptly and can even cause blindness.

Generally, with gonorrhea and Chlamydia, people do have symptoms but they can be mistaken for something else and thus not treated as promptly as they should have been. Both diseases can severely damage the reproductive system if not treated quickly enough leading to infertility. The good news is that both of these diseases can be treated quite easily if caught early, and condoms are almost 100% effective when used properly. So always, always use a condom.

The herpes simplex virus is another often-misunderstood STD. The disease has two major strains HSV-1 and HSV-2 that cause blisters and redness on the mouth and genitals respectively. Over 80% of the population has HSV-1 and over 20% has HSV-2. That means that one in five people have genital herpes, another disease where the effectiveness of a condom decreases because there is still exposed skin. There is no cure for herpes, just treatments that reduce how many breakouts you get in a year. The symptoms of this disease vary greatly with some people getting painful blisters while others go most of their lives with the disease not even knowing it. Often symptoms are very mild where you see a bit of irritation or redness and you don’t think much of it because it’s gone in a few days.

This article isn’t meant to scare anyone or say don’t enjoy your life. Hey, none of us is perfect. It’s to inform you that there are risks and condoms must be worn all the time every time (and yes that includes oral you wouldn’t want gonorrhea of the throat right?). Most importantly though is if you are sexually active, get tested every year, and if you ever think something is wrong get it looked at as soon as possible. If money is your issue here’s a list of free and sliding scale clinics for STD testing.

My name is Jennifer Anderson and I work for Your STD Help an organization that has helped hundreds of thousands of people that needed help with their STD symptoms. If you ever need help or need to talk, feel free to contact one of us at the website

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