“Aye, There’s the Rub!”

For the complete story, here is the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/11/teen.std.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

In my practice in phone triage, it is mind boggling the amount of calls I am getting from sexually active teens with STD’s diagnosed or symptoms strongly suggesting STD’s. I recently had a call from a 17 year old who was two months pregnant and had just been treated for Chlamydia. I had a call that was my call of the year so far: A seventeen year old male diagnosed with Chlamydia from his sports physical who asked me if it was still ok if his girlfriend could give him oral sex, even if he was not yet treated for the disease.( “I overslept and missed my appointment”) Talk about Chutzpah, nerve, whatever you wanted to call it. I did not know if I should have laughed, cried or gotten the kid’s address so I could find him so I could kick his ass. There are times in my job where I wish I had a button to push where I could send electric shock to the caller on the other end of the phone to jolt their ass back to reality.

The thing that people have to remember with the STD’s is that do not just present a current health problem. They can pose a health risk to the fetus the woman is carrying if she is pregnant. There is also Human Papilloma Virus(HPV) which is a major cause of Cervical Cancer in women.(There is a new virus out there that ALL girls should be getting that can protect them from HPV) There are multiple factors that have fed into this: Parents NOT talking about sex and related issues with their teenagers, kids thinking that getting an STD is going to happen to somebody else, and I would not totally overlook the fact that we have a mass media that sells having sex to kids that are younger and younger-but that’s a topic for another day.