GynoFiles

1. Today is the day each year we remind people to get HIV testing 2. It's important to START TREATMENT if you are HIV positive 3. There are lots of ways to get tested: Doing it your way means getting tested however you want: doctors office, a lab, at home, with a buddy, alone, whatever works 4. 1/7 people positive for HIV do not yet know they have become infected 5. The CDC says everyone from age 13 to 64 get tested once, and if you are high risk then get tested yearly 6. Text your zip to 566948 to find a testing center near you 7. At your next gyno visit at Women's Health Practice we can help you decide how and when to get all STI testing, so come for a visit!

All STDs can be treated, but knowing if you are cured, if you are immune, or if you have become reinfected by your partner is an important consideration. If you had an STD treated the next step is to figure out if you were really cured. And each STD has both an incubation rate (before which you won't even know you need to be cured), and a time to cure if it's treated. HPV disease is odd, you can't cure it with treatment, but you can get over it. About 80-90% of women will eliminate their HPV infection within 8-24 months. Although some who we think are clear have just reduced their virus amount by about 90% to undetectable levels. The good news about reducing your viral amount to undetectable levels is that cervical cancer is often kept at bay by just having an immune system fight it off. Knowing whether you are then immune to getting reinfected with the same HPV virus is a very difficult concept.Although we do develop antibodies to HPV after being infected, they are...

Many women wonder if they have an HPV infection, and for more about the HPV virus you can check this site at the CD C. There are many options now in HPV testing that can check the cervix, the vagina or the rectal area. But few women get offered any testing other than testing of the cervix. We are following this subject closely as there are new developing tests of the activity of your infection, and tests of the specific type of HPV. If you wonder if you have HPV a few questions can predict the outcome of any test you may have. Firstly, have you been sexually active? About 30% of women will test positive for HPV after their first 2 years of having sex. Well, even if you say no, you haven't been sexually active this may not actually be protective against HPV infection. Non-sexual HPV transmission is possible. In fact we are getting away from calling HPV a "sexually transmitted disease" because it is transmitted in so many other ways, and perhaps is mostly tra...

Can pain with urination be a chlamydia infection? Where do you least expect a chlamydia infection? Your elbow, yep, it can be there, your eye, it can be there too. (Actually in the joint of your elbow, but you get the point!) But it's usually in the private parts that you expect. But what you don't expect is not to expect it. In other words, you just have to get tested as often there really are no symptoms at all. For instance with chlamydia infections of the urethra, or the tube coming from the bladder, the symptoms can be painful urination, but it may be no urine pain at all! And actually blood in the urine, called hematuria, usually means a regular bacterial type urinary tract infection. Hematuria, or blood in the urine usually excludes most urinary infections by the chlamydia organism. In fact asymptomatic urethral infections with chlamydia are so common gynos often use pee tests just to test for the infection in you and your partner. And for regular bacteri...

The future of curing infection is in danger according to the newest report in September 2013 from the CDC. describes an infectious disease landscape in which 2 million people in the United States are sickened annually with antibiotic-resistant infections. The report estimates that at least 23,000 people a year die from antibiotic-resistant infections. For gynos are growing numbers of cases of  drug-resistant gonorrhea,  and a growing percentage of the organisms that cause gonorrhea are resistant to even the last line of medications currently available. Another serious threat is from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and over 80,000 serious MRSA infections each year in the United States. Breast MRSA and genital area MRSA infections are diagnosed relatively commonly in gyno offices. A critical component of controlling these infections is to watch the amount of antibiotic use you consume. About half of all antibiotics given are probably unnecessary. Testi...

What are the first things that pop into your mind when you think about a potential partner? He’s so good looking. She’s so smart and funny. I can’t wait to spend some alone time with him. Maybe you are looking for that Russian bibliophile or that other owner of the 100 best philatelic nudes ever printed. However, as a gyno, I’m as concerned about your sexual health as your intellectual health. And frankly, without both, nope, there’s no staying together. So, before you get that alone time with your partner and get out a large magnifying glass to examine your…ah….. relationship and where it is going, there should be a frank discussion about sexual histories and sexual health. The couple that does STD screening together will likely stay together, let alone stay heathlier. Although you want to trust the person that you are spending time with, you need to consider the fact that many people aren’t completely open and honest about their sex lives. And, when it comes to...

It's never a fun discussion to reveal STDs to new partners, whether they be past or current infections. Some times infections pose very significant risk: HIV or Hepatitis C. Sometimes the infections are so easily curable that the state will typically track your partner down for treatment whether you spill or don't, like chlamydia. HPV is a difficult one to discuss. If it's HPV warts you have, well, the guy may get these warts and he really should be check for them. HPV caused abnormal pap smears present an unclear risk to the partner. He can pass on the infection , but his risk of getting a cancer is low, and thus patients express a lot of reluctance to be frank about the discussion if they have been told they have a positive HPV test.  I've heard all sorts of poor strategies  from patients about what to tell their guys about HPV infection. 1. Lie, after all, maybe the test is wrong 2. Wait to see if it goes away 3. Find out if he's already had the infection 4...

If you have what you think is a painful pimple or gentile area sore you may in fact have a herpes out break. Classic cases of blisters or ulcers are fairly clear cut and your gyno would likely be able to diagnose the cause by visualization. Confirmation of active herpes simplex infection (HSV)  is best, particularly for first outbreaks, done with medical testing. If there is a lesion then a culture test should be done, if not, then blood testing is indicated.Some people either never get the obvious blister cluster or just get such mild symptoms that they don't come to the gyno with an active infection to culture. But even with a cluster of herpes blisters it may not be an easy condition to confirm by culture tests as the virus is difficult to grow. Since the herpes virus is difficult to culture and in fact false negative culture results are common. So you may need a blood test to see if you have herpes. The blood test is for HSV-2 IgG, and you can get tested for HSV-1 IgG if you s...

Killing off of a disease caused by a bacteria and keeping the patient safe and not harmed by the treatment seems like a "duh" moment for us, but at the turn of the 20th century, it was radical. Dr. Paul Ehrlich was a German Scientist working to cure syphilis  who originally coined the concept of a "magic bullet" that would be able to kill off bugs without killing the patient herself. Now as we so causally take antibiotics it's nice to pause and think back to those times and be grateful.