Health
The Importance of STD Checks
An STD check is essential if you want to preserve your health. Attitudes towards sexual contact have liberalized over the years. According to the American Medical Association, four million adolescents contract some sort of STD each year. This is a huge amount and it demonstrates how quickly certain diseases can spread.
We’re not here to discuss the moralities of sex, especially in relation to those who’re underage. We’re here to discuss why picking up an STD test guide online or through your local clinic could very well save your sex life.
The Spread
The reason why so many people have an STD is not that they have some genetic predisposition to it. The problem is most people have no idea there’s anything wrong with them in the first place. A lot of diseases lie dormant under the surface. You’re infected, but you can’t tell you’re infected unless it happens to flare up.
As more people decide to experiment with sex, the chances of spreading these diseases increase. Even if they lie dormant, eventually they could begin to cause real symptoms and real problems.
It’s important to stop your STD before you unwittingly spread it to someone else and put them in the same position as you. By increasing awareness of STDs, we can reduce the incidence rate on a worldwide scale.
The Financial Cost
If you live in the US or any other country with a private healthcare system, you know it’s you who has to bear the brunt of the cost. Even if you live in the UK where there’s a public healthcare system, the costs of STD treatments are passed onto you the taxpayer.
Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed $16 billion USD is spent on treated STDs every year. In many cases, you have no choice but to pay for the treatment, so you’re always in a difficult financial position.
Do you really want this sort of burden on your shoulders permanently? It’s stressful. And it’s proven fact stress will cause any disease or illness to get worse. The best way to deal with something you can’t get rid of is to live a relatively relaxing lifestyle. Stress tends to irritate things.
Your Death
Apologies for the blunt title, but it needs to be said. Certain STDs, of which there are many, can kill you. The symptoms won’t appear for a few months. AIDS is the most well-known of these diseases. In this case, the bacteria leak into the bloodstream and damage the immune system. You can control it, but there’s a high mortality rate.
Your best chance of avoiding death by STDs is to catch them early. Get an STD test regularly. If you have multiple sexual partners, the best way to be safe is to get tested after each sexual encounter. It might seem overzealous, but it can save your life. Those who’re in monogamous sexual relationships need only be tested once or twice because they know they’re having sexual contact with someone who’s already clean.
By catching the disease early, your doctor can formulate a proper plan of attack. Whilst they might not be able to rid your body of the disease, they can suppress it to such an extent it never damages you.
It’s Embarrassing
STDs carry a lot of stigma with them, especially among homosexual communities where many uninformed people still attribute these diseases to homosexuality. There are so many embarrassing symptoms from STDs, including warts around the rectal area. It can stop people from seeking help until they absolutely have to.
The problem is if you wait until the symptoms appear you might have put yourself in an embarrassing situation you can’t get out of. Someone who has visible signs of an STD will struggle to find a partner. Nobody is going to want to have any sexual contact with someone who’s so ‘high risk’.
The damage caused by an inability to find a partner is huge. It can cause people to feel self-conscious and depressed. Those with STDs regularly withdraw from normal society as they see themselves as ‘dirty’ and ‘disgusting’. Nothing can change how they feel about themselves in the short-term.
These negative feelings caused by the embarrassment could have been avoided if they had themselves checked. Using the wart example above, this was the HPV virus. These symptoms usually take about three months to first appear. This is three months of time you have to tackle the problem.
Get Checked for Cheap
Many people fear going to the doctor due to the cost of getting tested, especially in the US. Local authorities are slowly waking up to how necessary an STD test guides for people. Instead of charging high prices, they offer free STD tests for people in the local community. It’s enabling more people to come to terms with this problem, as well as spreading awareness.