“Do I have a Sexually Transmitted Disease?” Well, if you had intercourse last night and you think you have an STD this morning, probably not. You have anxiety. Or you may just have inoculated yourself with a good dose of guilt. That’s not as contagious but just as worrisome. Let’s talk specifically about the actual sexually transmitted diseases themselves.

The main STDs are bacterial (Gonorrhea), viral (Herpes simplex 1 or 2, Hepatitis B, Cytomegalovirus or HIV), spirochetes (Syphilis), protozoan (Trichomonas) or intracellular parasites (Chlamydia). If you want to know the details of these, you may want to enroll in medical school. Otherwise, to just give your mind some ease or to get you started down the road to treatment, let’s just look at some basics.

There is usually a period of time between when you first get exposed (that may have happened last night when during the passion of the moment you forgot about all the risks) and when you eventually get the disease itself (that may be soon). This is what we refer to as an incubation period. This can be a few days to a few weeks but usually not a few hours. An exception to this would only be an infestation of the body louse or crabs. You usually see these crawling around the pubic areas. Don’t try to burn them out. They are easily treated so we will get to them a little later.