HerpesDateSites.com

By Paul Swiech

BLOOMINGTON — It’s so consequence-free. A man and woman find each other attractive, they flirt, then have sex, perhaps more than once. The relationship ends and the couple move on to other people, leaving only bittersweet memories of a brief, intense romance.

Get real.

Movies and television programs are filled with stories of sexual encounters without the consequences of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and a warped view of romance. The popular movie “Sex and the City,” for example, involves a lot of sex with few ramifications, according to some viewers.

The problem is that people who are swayed by these messages could be setting themselves up for all sorts of bad things, including STDs, long-term health problems, infertility or a misunderstanding of what it takes to have an intimate relationship with someone.

This heads-up goes out not only to impressionable teenagers but to adults who are newly single because of a divorce or spouse’s death. Older adults returning to single life may get the wrong message, while not recognizing that there are more sexually transmitted diseases than there were 30 years ago.

“We need to look at these (media) messages through the lenses of reality,” said Shireen Schrock, vice president of community education for Planned Parenthood of Illinois.

“STDs are equal opportunity infections,” she said. “They don’t care where you live or how much money you make. There is not a typical face of someone with an STD.”

Schrock said, “The fantasy model of sex does the public a disservice. It shows sex as the most important thing in a relationship.”

“There are consequences of unsafe sex and there’s nothing casual about them,” said Bree Davis, the McLean County Health Department’s public health communications specialist.

Movies, television programs and other media that portray sex casually present a conversation opener among families and friends, said Melissa Graven, a registered nurse and the health department’s communicable disease program coordinator.

Schrock agreed.

“‘What do you think of the movie ‘Sex and the City?’ — or something else you’ve seen — could be a way to start a conversation (with someone you’re dating),” said Schrock, who is based at Planned Parenthood’s Bloomington office. “What you think about a friend’s decision to not have sex or to have sex could be another way to start that discussion.”

The ensuing conversation could help you to get to know the other person, his or her values and what’s important to them in a relationship, and could lead to more detailed questions about their sexual history, views on sex outside of marriage, whether they’ve been tested for a sexually transmitted disease or whether they use birth control, Schrock said.

For people who doubt the relevance of these messages, consider this:

• There are more than 20 types of STDs, more than in the 1960s. (Source: Illinois Department of Public Health).

• The number of Americans with a sexually transmitted disease is unknown because only three — gonorrhea, Chlamydia and syphilis — must be reported to county health departments. (Source: McLean County Health Department) But one in five Americans (45 million) has just one type of STD — genital herpes. (Source: IDPH)

“We’ve got a really high prevalence of genital herpes and HPV (human papillomavirus) and not a good way to track them,” Schrock said.

• Fifty percent of Illinois high school students said in 2007 that they have had sexual intercourse and 15.8 percent already had intercourse with four or more people. (Source: Youth Risk Behavior Survey, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

• National and McLean County data reveal a slight increase in numbers of people with gonorrhea and Chlamydia. In 2007, there were 579 Chlamydia cases, 199 gonorrhea cases and four cases of syphilis in McLean County. (Source: county health department).

“We see women of all ages (with a sexually transmitted disease) but 13- to 19-year-olds are more at risk because their cervix has not matured yet,” Graven said. “The tissue in the cervix is more vulnerable to infection in teenage women.”

One in three people with a sexually transmitted disease don’t know they know they have it because they don’t have symptoms, Graven said. That’s what makes them so easily transmittable among people who are sexually active, she said.

Bacterial STDs — gonorrhea, Chlamydia and syphilis — may be treated with antibiotics. Viral STDs — HPV, herpes and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) — can’t be cured but symptoms may be treated.

Some infections, left untreated, attack women’s reproductive systems, narrowing the fallopian tubes and scarring the uterus, making it difficult for the women to become pregnant later in life, Graven said. An untreated STD also may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a painful infection of the reproductive track.

Fewer men have long-term complications of an STD compared with women, Graven said. Those complications include testicular cancer and infertility.

“One in four female teenagers is infected with an STD,” Graven said. “You can get infected with any STD during vaginal, oral or rectal sex.”

“As a 15-year-old, do you want to be exposed to something that will remain with you for the rest of your life?” asked Jamie Johnson of Catholic Charities.

People who have more than one sexual partner or people whose sexual partner has had sex with someone else should be tested each year for STDs, Graven said.

Abstaining from sex is the only surefire way to not get an STD, Graven said. Limiting your number of sex partners and using a condom with every partner every time you have vaginal, oral or anal sex can reduce your risk of an STD.

“Enter a relationship knowing each other’s status,” Graven said. “Take responsibility for your sexual health and your body.

“It’s OK to ask ‘Have you ever been tested for an STD?’ Or ‘I’ve been tested. These are my results. What about you?’ That conversation should happen before sex happens.

“If the other person doesn’t respond or if you don’t feel comfortable, you can say ‘No, we’re not having sex.’”

“If you can’t talk with your boyfriend or girlfriend about sex, you’re not ready for sex,” Schrock said. “Open, honest conversations go a long way in prevention.”

The secret of how the cold sore virus manages to hide out in the human body may have been cracked by scientists.

Duke University researchers say they have discovered how this pesky virus can reactivate itself from a dormant state. That’s when problems such as cold sores and shingles surface.

The report in the journal Nature explains that by figuring out how this virus hides scientists may now be able to find a way to wake it up and then kill if for good.

Herpes viruses makes millions of people miserable, causing cold sores, genital herpes and shingles.

U.S. researchers reported Wednesday they may have found a way to flush out herpes viruses from hiding — offering a potential way to cure pesky and painful conditions from cold sores to shingles.

They discovered that a mysterious gene carried by the herpes simplex-1 virus — the one that causes cold sores — allows the virus to lay low in the nerves it infects.

It does so via microRNAs, little pieces of genetic material that regulate the activity of many viruses, the researchers report in the journal Nature.

It may be possible to “wake up” the virus and then kill it with standard antiviral drugs such as acyclovir, said Jennifer Lin Umbach of Duke University in North Carolina, who worked on the study.

“We are trying to go into animal trials,” Umbach said in a telephone interview.

The Duke team is discussing a potential collaboration with Regulus Therapeutics LLC, a joint venture between Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. that specializes in microRNAs.

Herpes viruses cause permanent infections. They head straight to nerve cells, where they stay latent for the life of an animal or person, often causing periodic outbreaks.

.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,372728,00.html

A Pennsylvania school district has such a high number of students with sexually transmitted diseases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped in to track down students at risk for HIV.

It’s estimated that 10 percent of the 3,000 middle and high school students in the Delaware Valley School District in Milford, P.A., are infected with an STD — including one confirmed case of HIV, Times Herald Record reported Friday.

On top of those figures, about two dozen teenage girls in the school system have tested positive for pregnancy.

A non-profit health clinic in Milford said they estimate more than 300 students contracted a sexually transmitted disease in the past year. Officials also told the paper students as young as 12 years old reported being sexually active.

The clinic eventually alerted the school district to the alarmingly high numbers. School officials then sent a letter home to parents on June 15.

“It was sad to see the letter,” Tara Johnson, a Milford parent with a son in middle school, told the Times Herald. “We live in the kind of district where everybody works very hard to give the appearance that everything is perfect.”

A 15-year-old girl, who will enter tenth grade in the fall at Delaware Valley, told the paper she can’t believe the news.

“That somebody in our school in northeastern Pennsylvania had HIV was just shocking,” said Rachel McKean.

Kristen Bruce, a nurse practitioner with the Milford clinic, said most of the cases were the human papillomavirus (HPV).

HPV infections are very common, according to the Mayo Clinic. It’s estimated that close to 25 million people in the U.S. have HPV infections, which can cause genital warts and related lesions. Some strains of HPV are linked to cervical cancer.

Bruce told the paper she wasn’t surprised by the numbers, citing a recent CDC study that found at least one in four teenage girls nationwide, between the ages of 14 and 19, has a sexually transmitted disease.

Dr. Keith Ablow, FOX News Channel’s psychiatry correspondent, said he too, was not surprised.

“Young people are desperately looking for anything that will make them feel human, as our culture plunges into the unreality of the Internet, technology and media,” he said. “The easy way to try to convince yourself that you can still feel when nothing seems real is to have sex and experience pleasure and maybe even have a baby who can hold you and make you feel loved.”

The Board of Education is currently revising the health curriculum, which places heavy emphasis on abstinence.

Dr. Joseph Rahimian, an infectious disease specialist at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, said besides education, parents need to be aware of Gardasil, a cervical cancer vaccine that protects against four types of HPV.

“Regardless if you think your child is sexually active, getting the HPV vaccine is in the best long-term interest of these young girls,” Rahimian said. “I think HPV was always a problem and it is often underestimated. There’s no study that abstinence is a highly effective form of prevention for any of these infections.”

NEW YORK, June 9 (UPI) — Twenty-six percent of New York City residents have genital herpes, compared to 19 percent nationally, New York health officials say.

Herpes Simplex Virus-2, the virus that causes genital herpes, is a lifelong sexually transmitted infection that can cause painful genital sores in a minority of cases, but most have no recognizable symptoms.

Herpes Simplex Virus-2 facilitates the spread of HIV — doubling the risk that a person will contract HIV when exposed to it. Herpes Simplex Virus-2 can also be serious when transmitted to newborns, although this is rare, officials said.

The study, published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, said that among New Yorkers, the rate is higher among women than men — 36 percent versus 19 percent; higher among blacks than whites — 49 percent versus 14 percent; and higher among men who have sex with men than those who don’t — 32 percent versus 18 percent. The national rate has declined in recent years.

“Genital herpes alone will not cause serious problems for most people,” lead author Julia Schillinger of the health department said in a statement. “But some people will have painful genital sores and the infection fosters the spread of HIV. Using condoms consistently will help you avoid getting or spreading genital herpes.”

How is herpes transmitted?

Herpes can be transmitted from one person to another through direct skin to skin contact. This is why Herpes can be transmitted through sexual intercourse. When the genitals come into contact with each other during intercourse, the virus gets transmitted. Oral sex and anal sex may also lead to the transmission of herpes.

How can you protect yourself against Herpes?

The best and the most sure-fire way of protecting yourself against herpes is abstinence from sexual intercourse. This, however, is quite hard for some people to do; it might even border on the impossible for some. The next best thing would be to have a mutually monogamous relationship with someone who does not have Herpes.

If having multiple sexual partners cannot be avoided, wearing a condom at all times is a must. You can avoid getting infected through asymptomatic shedding (in fact, you can prevent contracting several other sexually transmitted diseases aside from Herpes) by wearing a condom every time you engage in sexual intercourse. Regular diagnostic testing is also recommended.

The spread of Herpes can be curbed. It is necessary, however, that people adhere to a few simple rules and take the time to understand what Herpes is.

A lot of the problems we are encountering today stem from relatively simple causes. One of these problems is ‘Herpes’. Herpes is a disease that everyone has probably heard of at least once in his/her life. Unfortunately though, despite the fact that a lot of people know of this disease, most people’s knowledge of it ends with its name. The answers to the most basic questions about Herpes remain unknown despite the easy availability of relevant information.

Herpes is still spreading in epidemic proportions. About 500,000 new herpes cases are discovered each year. And what’s even more unfortunate is that we wouldn’t have had this problem if only information about it had been disseminated quickly, properly and accurately. In an effort to help stem the spread of this disease, here is a list of FAQ’s about Herpes.

What is Herpes?

Herpes is a sexually transmitted disease. Its causative agent is the Herpes Simplex Virus or HSV. HSV has two strains; namely HSV1 and HSV2. HSV1 causes cold sores to appear around the area of the mouth while HSV2 generally refers to the type of herpes that induces the appearance of sores around the genitalia.

What are its symptoms?

Genital Herpes, the type caused by HSV2, has several symptoms. The most noticeable of them all, however, are the clusters of papules that appear around the penis, vulva or anus a week after contracting the disease and during outbreaks. These papules resemble cold sores and are often painful and itchy. Herpes may also induce discharge from either the penis or the vagina. Herpes, moreover, can be accompanied by fever, body malaise, swollen lymph nodes, and headaches. Dysuria or painful urination may also be noted.

Herpes, however, has an ‘asymptomatic stage’ which occurs during the first week after a person contracts the disease; this asymptomatic stage also occurs sporadically between outbreaks. During this period, no symptoms appear even though the virus is present. This means that a person who does not exhibit typical Herpes symptoms may still be infected with the disease. Even worse, such a person may already be a carrier of the said disease and may unknowingly spread it to others through the so-called ‘asymptomatic shedding’. This disproves the common misconception that herpes cannot be transmitted when sores are absent.