Doctor's corner

Here are a few things I wish I knew a long time ago about HSV (Herpes) and about HPV:

Sores on your mouth are the EXACT SAME VIRUS as outbreaks on your genitals. You can also give yourself genital herpes if you touch your own sore on your mouth and later touch your genitals. Same goes for genital warts. Wart on your foot is not not better than wart on your hoo hoo or pee pee:-) However, those kind of warts are caused by HPV. And HPV causes cervical cancer if undetected. What most of us don't know is that if you are under the age of 25, your MD will not test for HPV unless your pap comes back abnormal - however, normal pap doesn't mean you do not have HPV. Once you contract one strain and your immune system gets rid of it (usually in 5 years) you become immune to it. But you can still contract another strain, there are so many! Bad news?! Guys don't have symptoms and there is no test out there just yet to test men for it. So, don't have sex or use condoms...As for Herpes, even a condom isn't good enough of a protection...if you do end up getting HSV, know that HSV 1 is not as bad as HSV 2, there are less outbreaks. And, there is always VALTREX:-)

Also, don't forget about Chlamydia, GC and Trichomonas. All are bacterial and rarely ever come with symptoms. However, they do cause INFERTILITY.

Here is also some advice for you all as patients. From experience, every doctor dislikes patients that call with "questions regarding birth control". We do tell you that spotting, breakthrough bleeding, acne, missed period,and cramping are all NORMAL. So please DO NOT CALL your doctor's office about that. And when you miss a pill? You DO KNOW what to do! What you might forget about is that Abx(antibiotics) lessen the effectiveness of all oral contraceptives (including NuvaRing). USE BACK UP METHOD IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO GET PREGNANT.

CANCER: The drug Tamoxifen that is given to breast cancer patients can cause uterine cancer. Sadly. I didn't know. Ovarian cancer never shows symptoms in its early stages so most patients get diagnosed once it is pretty bad. But recent blood test had gotten approved by the FDA for screening for this type of cancer as it has proven to be 95% sucessful at detecting it. It is not the standard CA125 that exists already, this is a test specifically for ovarian cancer. Yey to research!