From gonorrhea and syphilis to a number of newer diseases, these are the STDs you should definitely be on the lookout for
Published December 10, 2023 8:30AM (EST)
Gynecologist doctor and a patient (Getty Images/stefanamer)
Dating and hooking up in the modern world carries an inherent risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections. Indeed, sex is more than just a pleasurable experience, it’s an important part of one’s mental and physical health. One of the essential elements of maintaining that health is monitoring for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). But the landscape of diseases that most people learned about in sex ed — if they had it at all — is changing, with new conditions emerging without the same level of surveillance for things like gonorrhea and syphilis.
Even with advances in treatment and contraception, Americans have been experiencing a surge in STIs like chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, all three of which saw significant increases between 2020 and 2021, the most recent year data is available. There are also relatively new or rare diseases circulating that some people may not have ever heard of in a sex ed class, such as Mycoplasma genitalium (Mgen for short), Shigella flexneri, Neisseria meningitidis and Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV). But all of these can cause unpleasant infections spread through sexual activity.
Here’s a few things most people should know about these illnesses and what to look out for.
In November, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first test ever for chlamydia and gonorrhea that has an at-home sample collection. Indeed, it is the first STD test with at-home sample collection ever authorized by the FDA except for a previous test used to detect HIV. While chlamydia and gonorrhea are not as severe as HIV, the former disease is certainly a menace.
Chlamydia symptoms include burning while urinating and suffering from discharge from your genitalia. Men can also suffer from pain and swelling in their testicles, while women can endure such damage to their reproductive systems that they are unable to successfully get pregnant later. Although it is difficult to account for many cases of chlamydia, as of 2018 the CDC estimated that there were four million cases of the disease in the United States. In 2021, there were a total of 1,644,416 confirmed cases has been reported to the CDC.
Although gonorrhea is often asymptomatic, it can also lead to symptoms in men such as a white, green or yellowish discharge from the urethra. For women, gonorrhea is either asymptomatic or has symptoms that can be mistaken for other diseases such as vaginal or bladder infections. If gonorrhea is contracted during anal sex, the symptoms can include discharge, itching and painful bowel movements, and if contracted during oral sex can lead to a sore throat.
Yet the real threat with gonorrhea is what it does to the body in the long-term: For women, gonorrhea infections can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) after spreading into the uterus or Fallopian tubes,