U.S. Health Watch

STD, sexually transmitted diseases have been called the 21st century plague.

Sexually transmitted disease includes well-known diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis, but also genital warts, genital herpes and chlamydia.

The stigma of what used to be called venereal diseases has largely gone, partly because everyone knows someone who has had to visit the STD clinic. Nice girls catch STDs, too.

STDs are transmitted by sexual contact. The more people you have sexual contact with, the greater your chance of having sex with someone who has STD and the greater the chance that you will be infected too. You can catch STD if the first person you have sexual intercourse with is infected, so it is not necessarily a sign of sexual license. Check out http://www.std-testing.info for more information.

Most sexually transmitted diseases respond to treatment if caught in the early stages. Some, like syphilis and gonorrhea respond to antibiotics. Genital warts may need to be frozen off with liquid nitrogen. Not all hepatitis infections are treatable.

Many of these diseases have no symptoms. Gonorrhea may cause painful urination in males, but no immediate symptoms in females. Chlamydia has no immediate symptoms in males or females, yet if left untreated will cause infertility and pelvic inflammatory disease in females.

Because of the lack of symptoms, it is advisable for any adult who is sexually active to be tested for STDs. The consequences of a night of passion could be life-long and result in insanity or death at an early age if STDs are not detected and treated.

Diagnosis is simple; a swab is taken and sent for analysis. If the laboratory finds a positive result you will be asked back for treatment. If the result is positive you may be asked for a list of sexual contacts, or be asked to contact anyone you have had sexual relations with, so those people can also be treated.

AIDS/HIV is the sexually transmitted disease that everyone is aware of, but many people forget the older and more common diseases that also kill. Condoms help reduce the risk of STD transmission; they do not remove the risk entirely.