Sexually Transmitted Infections MYTHS Only sleazy or slutty people get STIs • These infections are equal opportunity. If you're engaging in sexual activity and you're not using condoms consistently and correctly, everyone's at risk for these infections. • You cannot have any way to tell who's infected or who's not infected. The only way you really can know is by having everybody go in and get checked by a health care provider and tested to see if they're infected. Only adults get STIs • Younger people, especially young girls…are at higher risk for STIs and they've got the most to lose, because they’re the ones who have their reproductive years ahead of them. There are some biological factors that actually put young people, especially young women, at a much higher risk of acquiring some of these STIs….which can lead to infertility and other serious upper reproductive tract problems for girls I can't catch an STI from having oral or anal sex • A lot of teenage girls…think that if you're not having vaginal sex that you're not really at risk for these infections. But if you're exposed to any kind of body fluid, you can transmit these infections. • The skin inside the mouth and rectum are not as tough as the skin on the outside of our body. So it's much easier for infections to be transmitted. We know that the transmission rate of these infections is just as high for oral and anal sex as it is for vaginal sex. You can get an STI from a toilet seat • In general, these organisms don't survive outside of the human body for very long. • Toilet seats are generally not harboring viruses or bacteria—it is rare that you would sit down and acquire a Sexually Transmitted Infection. You can't get an STI if you only have sex once • If you have sex once with a partner who's got chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis, you've got about a 30% chance you're going to pick up the infection that one time. That’s a very high infection rate. The consequences, particularly for young girls, are so significant that it’s important that everyone understands that once is definitely enough to transmit STIs. If you have sex in a hot tub or pool, the chlorine or heat will kill any STI you might catch • The temperature of the water or the dilution of the chlorine is not likely to kill ALL sperm or STIs. • Precautions should be used at ALL times. Two condoms are better than one • Using two condoms at the same time could actually do more harm than good. It could cause some friction between the condoms that…could actually cause more breakage and leakage. • Viruses can get through some of the natural skin condoms, so they don't protect against all sexually transmitted infections. Latex--or polyurethane are the safest choices. • It's important that teens recognize that the condom needs to be put on as soon as there’s an erection because there's pre-ejaculate that can be released that can cause both STIs and unplanned pregnancies. You can only get the same STI once • For the viral STIs like HIV and herpes, once you're infected you're infected for life. But we do know that you can get other strains of the same virus if you're continuing to have unprotected sex. • It’s very important for people to know, once they've had chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis and they have been treated and cured, they are now susceptible again. Especially in young girls, the second time you have chlamydia there's more damage to your reproductive tract. Once they've been treated they need to practice safe sex so that they don't get infected again. You can only catch Herpes when the other person is having an outbreak • It used to be thought that only when you have a sore did you need to worry about transferring the herpes virus. • There have now been a number of studies that have shown that people still are shedding the herpes virus after the sore clears, so they can still transmit it to a partner. • There are also people who have never had symptoms of herpes that carry herpes. They can be shedding virus and transmitting it to a partner. If you have an STI, just take antibiotics and it will go away • For the bacterial STIs, it is true that antibiotics are highly effective. About 95% or 98% of the time when you take the antibiotic your infection will go away. But sometimes damage has already been done if you've already had the infection for a while before you got treated. • Viral STIs are harder to treat. You can use antiviral medication…but it doesn’t cure the infections. • It just make the symptoms less painful and makes the virus less transmissible. • Once you are off your medication for herpes and sometimes for HIV, your virus can increase and you can be more likely to transmit it to a partner. • There have been declines in both mortality [death] and the complications of AIDS because there are much better treatments now. • But the AIDS drugs do have a lot of side effects. For many people, they need to be taken for long periods of time. • AIDS is complicated. It is still believed that the best treatment for HIV is to prevent becoming infected to begin with.
