| Medical Dictionary |
A Medical Dictionary of Medical Terminology
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Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease. It is most common in young adults. The bacteria that cause gonorrhea can infect the genital tract, mouth, or anus. You can get gonorrhea during vaginal, oral, or anal sex with an infected partner. A pregnant woman can pass it to her baby during childbirth.
Gonorrhea does not always cause symptoms. In men, gonorrhea can cause pain when urinating and discharge from the penis. If untreated, it can cause problems with the prostate and testicles.
In women, the early symptoms of gonorrhea often are mild. Later, it can cause bleeding between periods, pain when urinating, and increased discharge from the vagina. If untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which causes problems with pregnancy and infertility.
Your health care provider will diagnose gonorrhea with lab tests. Treatment is with antibiotics. Treating gonorrhea is becoming more difficult because drug-resistant strains are increasing. Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading gonorrhea. If your or your partner is allergic to latex, you can use polyurethane condoms. The most reliable way to avoid infection is to not have anal, vaginal, or oral sex.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Antibiotics are medicines that fight bacterial infections. Used properly, they can save lives. But there is a growing problem of antibiotic resistance. It happens when bacteria change and resist the effects of an antibiotic. Resistant bacteria may continue to grow and multiply.
Each time you take antibiotics there is a risk that the bacteria will become resistant. Resistant infections can be difficult and sometimes impossible to treat. They can spread to other people. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is one example. It causes infections that are resistant to several common antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistance can cause problems. To help prevent antibiotic resistance:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD). It is caused by bacteria called Chlamydia trachomatis. Anyone can get chlamydia. It often doesn't cause symptoms, so people may not know that they have it. Antibiotics can cure it. But if it's not treated, chlamydia can cause serious health problems.
How is chlamydia spread?You can get chlamydia during oral, vaginal, or anal sex with someone who has chlamydia. A pregnant person can also pass chlamydia to the baby during childbirth.
If you've had chlamydia and were treated in the past, you can get re-infected if you have unprotected sex with someone who has it.
Who is more likely to get chlamydia?Chlamydia is more common in young people, especially young women. You are more likely to get infected with chlamydia if you don't consistently use a condom or if you have multiple partners.
What are the symptoms of chlamydia?Chlamydia doesn't usually cause any symptoms. So you may not realize that you have it. But even if you don't have symptoms, you can still pass the infection to others.
If you do have symptoms, they may not appear until several weeks after you have sex with someone who has chlamydia.
Symptoms in women include:
If the infection spreads, you might get lower abdominal (belly) pain, pain during sex, nausea, and fever.
Symptoms in men include:
If the chlamydia infects the rectum (in men or women), it can cause rectal pain, discharge, and bleeding.
How is chlamydia diagnosed?There are lab tests to diagnose chlamydia. Your health care provider may ask you to provide a urine sample. Or your provider may use (or ask you to use) a cotton swab to get a sample from your vagina to test for chlamydia.
Who should be tested for chlamydia?You should go to your provider for a test if you have symptoms of chlamydia or if you have a partner who has an STD. Pregnant people should get a test when they go to their first prenatal visit.
People at higher risk should get checked for chlamydia every year:
In women, an untreated infection can spread to your uterus and fallopian tubes, causing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID can cause permanent damage to your reproductive system. This can lead to long-term pelvic pain, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy. Women who have had chlamydia infections more than once are at higher risk of serious reproductive health complications.
Men often don't have health problems from chlamydia. Sometimes it can infect the epididymis (the tube that carries sperm). This can cause pain, fever, and, rarely, infertility.
Both men and women can develop reactive arthritis because of a chlamydia infection. Reactive arthritis is a type of arthritis that happens as a "reaction" to an infection in the body.
Babies born to infected mothers can get eye infections and pneumonia from chlamydia. It may also make it more likely for your baby to be born too early.
Untreated chlamydia may also increase your chances of getting or giving HIV.
What are the treatments for chlamydia?Antibiotics will cure the infection. You may get a one-time dose of the antibiotics, or you may need to take medicine every day for 7 days. It is important to take all the medicine that your provider prescribed for you. Antibiotics cannot repair any permanent damage that the disease has caused.
To prevent spreading the disease to your partner, you should not have sex until the infection has cleared up. If you got a one-time dose of antibiotics, you should wait 7 days after taking the medicine to have sex again. If you have to take medicine every day for 7 days, you should not have sex again until you have finished taking all of the doses of your medicine.
It is common to get a repeat infection, so you need to get tested again about three months after treatment.
Can chlamydia be prevented?The only sure way to prevent chlamydia is to not have vaginal, anal, or oral sex.
Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading chlamydia. If your or your partner is allergic to latex, you can use polyurethane condoms.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Most kinds of arthritis cause pain and swelling in your joints. Joints are places where two bones meet, such as your elbow or knee. Infectious arthritis is an infection in the joint. The infection comes from a bacterial, viral, or fungal infection that spreads from another part of the body. Symptoms of infectious arthritis include:
One type of infectious arthritis is reactive arthritis. The reaction is to an infection somewhere else in your body. The joint is usually the knee, ankle, or toe. Sometimes, reactive arthritis is set off by an infection in the bladder, or in the urethra, which carries urine out of the body. In women, an infection in the vagina can cause the reaction. For both men and women, it can start with bacteria passed on during sex. Another form of reactive arthritis starts with eating food or handling something that has bacteria on it.
To diagnose infectious arthritis, your health care provider may do tests of your blood, urine, and joint fluid. Treatment includes medicines and sometimes surgery.
Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is an infection and inflammation of the uterus, ovaries, and other female reproductive organs. It causes scarring in these organs. This can lead to infertility, ectopic pregnancy, pelvic pain, abscesses, and other serious problems. PID is the most common preventable cause of infertility in the United States.
Gonorrhea and chlamydia, two sexually transmitted diseases, are the most common causes of PID. Other bacteria can also cause it. You are at greater risk if you:
Some women have no symptoms. Others have pain in the lower abdomen, fever, smelly vaginal discharge, irregular bleeding, and pain during intercourse or urination. Doctors diagnose PID with a physical exam, lab tests, and imaging tests. Antibiotics can cure PID. Early treatment is important. Waiting too long increases the risk of infertility.
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), are infections that are passed from one person to another through sexual contact. They are usually spread during vaginal, oral, or anal sex. But sometimes they can spread through other sexual contact involving the penis, vagina, mouth, or anus. This is because some STDs, like herpes and HPV, are spread by skin-to-skin contact.
Some STDs can be passed from a pregnant person to the baby, either during pregnancy or when giving birth. Other ways that STDs may be spread include during breastfeeding, through blood transfusions, or by sharing needles.
There are more than 20 types of STDs, including:
STDs can be caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites.
Who is affected by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)?Most STDs affect both men and women, but in many cases the health problems they cause can be more severe for women.If an STD is passed to a baby, it can cause serious health problems.
What are the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)?STDs don't always cause symptoms or may only cause mild symptoms. So it is possible to have an infection and not know it. And even without symptoms, STDs can still be harmful and may be passed on during sex.
If there are symptoms, they could include:
If you are sexually active, you should talk to your health care provider about your risk for STDs and whether you need to be tested. This is especially important since many STDs do not usually cause symptoms.
Some STDs may be diagnosed during a physical exam or through microscopic examination of a sore or fluid swabbed from the vagina, penis, or anus. Blood tests can diagnose other types of STDs.
What are the treatments for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)?Antibiotics can treat STDs caused by bacteria or parasites. There is no cure for STDs caused by viruses, but medicines can often help with the symptoms and lower your risk of spreading the infection.
Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not completely eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading STDs. The most reliable way to avoid infection is to not have anal, vaginal, or oral sex.
There are vaccines to prevent HPV and hepatitis B.
Can sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) be prevented?Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not completely eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading STDs. If your or your partner is allergic to latex, you can use polyurethane condoms. The most reliable way to avoid infection is to not have anal, vaginal, or oral sex.
There are vaccines to prevent HPV and hepatitis B.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by bacteria. It infects the genital area, lips, mouth, or anus of both men and women. You usually get syphilis from sexual contact with someone who has it. It can also pass from mother to baby during pregnancy.
The early stage of syphilis usually causes a single, small, painless sore. Sometimes it causes swelling in nearby lymph nodes. If you do not treat it, syphilis usually causes a non-itchy skin rash, often on your hands and feet. Many people do not notice symptoms for years. Symptoms can go away and come back.
The sores caused by syphilis make it easier to get or give someone HIV during sex. If you are pregnant, syphilis can cause complications, or you could lose your baby. In rare cases, syphilis causes serious health problems and even death.
Syphilis is easy to cure with antibiotics if you catch it early. Correct usage of latex condoms greatly reduces, but does not completely eliminate, the risk of catching or spreading syphilis. If your or your partner is allergic to latex, you can use polyurethane condoms. The most reliable way to avoid infection is to not have anal, vaginal, or oral sex.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Teen sexual health is about how sex affects your physical and emotional health. It means knowing how to form healthy relationships and making decisions about sex that are right for you.
As your body changes during puberty, how you think, feel, and interact with others also changes. You may have new feelings and thoughts about sex. Understanding who you're becoming as a sexual young adult is also part of teen sexual health. For some teens, that includes understanding gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.
For all teens, taking responsibility for sexual health is part of growing up. Whether you choose to have sex or wait, responsibility includes knowing about:
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), are caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites that spread from person to person, usually during vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Some STDs are spread by skin-to-skin contact. Without treatment, some STDs can cause long-term health problems.
There are more than 20 types of STDs, including:
STDs don't always cause symptoms. So it is possible to have an infection without knowing it and then pass it on to someone else. The only way to know for sure whether you have an STD is to get tested.
How can I reduce my chances of getting a sexually transmitted disease (STD)?The most reliable way to avoid infection is to not have vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Saying "no" to sex is the right choice for many teens.
If you decide to have sex, "safer sex" practices will lower your chance of getting an STD. They include:
The only sure way to avoid pregnancy is not to have vaginal sex.
If you decide to have vaginal sex, birth control can help prevent pregnancy. There are many types of birth control that work in different ways. Your health care provider can help you choose birth control that's best for you.
Condoms are the only birth control method that protects against STDs. But condoms alone aren't the most effective form of birth control. It's safest to use condoms with another form of birth control to prevent both STDs and pregnancy.
What is a healthy relationship?Healthy sex starts with a healthy relationship, so it's important to take an honest look at how you and your partner treat each other. Your relationship may be healthy if it includes:
Your relationship may be unhealthy if it includes:
Your decisions about sex can affect your future health. Make sure that you know the facts so you can decide what is right for you.