Photo by Flickr user hugovk. Used under a Creative Commons license.
So one of the extra-credit assignments for my integrated communications theory / women’s studies / sex education class is to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, a.k.a. sexually transmitted diseases.
So what I’m wondering is, if you’re from the greater Seattle area, anyway, if there are any great, iconic places to go. For instance when I was at the peak of my sexual activity back in the mid-1970s, on the rare occasion our extended circle of friends in the Boston area had a “VD Scare” (which in those pre-virus days was far more of a major inconvenience than an actual scare) we’d spread the word and head out in mass for the local health department. I was never there for it but on at least one occasion friends told me the group was almost big enough to fill a Green Line subway car.
If it didn’t sound so in-retrospect unsanitary I’d wax nostalgic about the days the worst consequence of STIs was a sore butt from a big wallop of penicillin. But in retrospect? Eww.
But that was then and this is now, so…
Where does the responsible kinkster go to get screened?
Also, there used to be a blogger called TwiddlyBits who had a great post up years ago about all the ways, places, and things she insisted she get screened for. She got blood work, genital cultures, throat cultures, rectal cultures, visual inspections… in other words, da woiks.
I sort of assume you’d want to screen for HPV these days although if you were really being diligent (and assuming the screenings work that way) you’d obviously want to have your cervix screened if you’re a woman but men might want to have penises screened and everybody might want to know if they’re at risk for cancers of the ass or throat.
Any others spring to mind right away?
Now as it happens since the last time I had sex with a new partner (many years ago now) I came down with a bizarre and very scary set of symptoms that included cyclic fevers and (yikes!) classic “night sweats” when the fever broke where I’d sweat through my pillow! Since that’s evidently a classic symptom not only of HIV but of quite a few other horrible diseases I wound up having just about every kind of screening test you can imagine, including all the standard STDs (in case I’d had something for a very long time and hadn’t know it) plus quite a few others like various lymphomas and leukemias, liver diseases, and, I swear, rabies, TB, and leprosy!
Luckily, but nerve-wrackingly, all those tests came back negative (lemmie tell ya, you’re feeling pretty sorry for yourself when you feel let down that you don’t have HIV or leprosy either and you’re still sick. Anyway, I eventually got better, and a month or two after that my doctor called to let me know that a deep antibody assay had turned up active antibodies for cytomegalovirus — a disease that shows up as nothing but a case of the sniffles in the 99.999% of you who get it in early childhood but produces cyclic fevers and night sweats for adults who either have compromised immune systems (it’s a classic symptom for AIDS patients) and the .001% of non-immune-compromised adults like me who are just slow learners.
So anyway, the point of the homework isn’t to discover STD/STI’s (although if one has them it’s obviously a very good side benefit.) Instead it’s so we can understand the process and write a two-page paper about our experience.
Anyway, unless someone has a better suggestion I was thinking about picking one of these places. Specifically I’m thinking maybe the Public Health Department’s main STD Clinic at Harborview Hospital, although for years I’ve also driven by one of the neighborhood health clinics and it would be a nice excuse to drop by.
One way or another I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Submitted by 1923 (not verified) on Fri, 2008-02-08 08:54.
...cytomegalovirus -- a disease that shows up as nothing but a case of the sniffles in the 99.999% of you who get it in early childhood but produces cyclic fevers and night sweats for adults who either have compromised immune systems (it's a classic symptom for AIDS patients) and the .001% of non-immune-compromised adults like me who are just slow learners.
Figleaf, if I recall correctly, you mentioned in a previous post that you suffered with severe asthma (as well as allergies, I presume) until you were in your 20's, which would have been the 1970's. The turn-around for you was the introduction of a new asthma medication. I raise this point because I wonder if your severe reaction to the cytamegalovirus (A virus with megalomania? How appropriate.) could have been the result of the asthma medication suppressing your immune system which had been on yellow alert for years.
It will be interesting to read about your experience if you choose to navigate through the Public Health Clinic, so please report back on this.
[Interesting point! Because I did happen to pick up the illness during an unavoidable family visit with relatives who have a farm and enough domestic animals to push me right to the edge. Knowing what had happened on earlier trips I took not a new medication but an old nuclear-option one: prednesone. Immunosuppression is a major side effect (though another side effect is keeping you out of an oxygen tent) and a farm would make it a good place for someone to pick up CMV. Cool deduction and diagnosis from a distance, Kochanie! I'll run it past my family doc next time I go in. --fl]
Submitted by 1923 (not verified) on Fri, 2008-02-08 10:41.
Odds are good that someone in the class *will* discover they're carrying an STD. I'm very curious how your instructors handle this situation - not that you're likely to be privy to it. I periodically hear about students' rape experiences and that is overwhelming enough for me. Teaching WS often puts you in a position to hear the sort of stuff that's usually reserved for a good friend or a counselor, yet most of instructors have *no* training in counseling.
I assume you've got chlamydia on your list?
HPV testing ought to be routine these days, and I'm curious if you'll be offered it as a man. My ob/gyn offered it to me last spring, and I was relieved to learn I'm not actively infected with it. I'm pretty sure I had it for several years in my twenties, when I kept getting moderately abnormal results on Pap smears. Most people eventually clear the virus spontaneously, and I assume that's what I did.
The thing about HPV, though, is that it's one of those viruses (like Epstein-Barr and your friend CMV) that goes into hiding and can be reactivated. A recent study found that Gardasil reduced rates of HPV infection even in women in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s - which of course is not the group currently getting vaccinated. Merck's press release on this study doesn't speculate on why this might be the case, but I'm wondering if the vaccine might help the body keep the virus in check at undetectable levels. And if so, then maybe even some of us monogamous old married people should get the shot.
[I will be asking about chlamydia (another one of those infections you want anal/rectal cultures of if you've ever engaged in any kind of receptive anal play and oral cultures if you've engaged in any kind of oral sex or (possibly but not probably) genital-to-mouth-to-mouth kissing. And yeah, considering that maybe 85-99% of women who have cervical HPV infections get it from male partners, and considering that those male partners in turn almost certainly get it from previous female partners it ought to be a no-brainer for men to be tested *and* for the vaccine to be made available to us. All three of our instructors either are or have been shelter volunteers and at least one has also been a clinic volunteer so I'm pretty sure they can and (since this class just combines classes they regularly teach) probably have dealt with tests that come back positive. Thanks, Sungold! --fl]
Submitted by 1923 (not verified) on Fri, 2008-02-08 13:00.
A virus with megalomania? How appropriate.
Just to clarify: I was referring to the horrid long-lingering symptoms (fever, night sweats). I was not implying that it was appropriate for you to be afflicted with a virus with megalomania.
Write in haste, repent in leisure, as you say, fl.
[Well, I only took the prednesone for the duration of the trip so I wasn't thinking in terms of long-term immune suppression (though I agree that my regular course of meds, or even complications associated with even untreated asthma and allergies, could certainly compromise immune response.) The lingering illness behavior really is evidently part of the normal course of CMV. And yeah, the name is kind of a hoot isn't it? Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]
Submitted by 1923 (not verified) on Fri, 2008-02-08 14:27.
I got my screenings at Planned Parenthood and they're great; they charge on a sliding scale and the staff is incredibly sensitive and helpful. Also they more or less force you (you can opt out but they do their damndest to "strongly encourage") to get STI tests and Pap smears when you go in for birth control, which I think is a pretty good idea and gets people tested who otherwise wouldn't be.
[Whereever I go I'll be looking to get the works. Looks like PP and the public clinic at Harborview are both about the same distance from my house. (Hmm.... wonder if I could get into both on the same trip down that way?) Thanks, Holly. --fl]