[Question #8568] Past encounters ugly head part two.
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42 months ago
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Hi again Dr Handsfield and or Dr Hook.
I know I’m back way too soon to be healthy, but I just have a couple of residual questions that I wonder if you could clarify for me. (Please read my last post for details of exposure, it is the same)
I forgot to mention while writing my synopsis of events and tests that while testing the first time I was taking Doxycycline. Which is why I tested a further three times.
So follow up 1)
Is it possible that my tests where falsely positive I tested Jun July and sep last year (again 2 years of exposure) I was on 2x100g of doxycycline for 7 days for a chest infections.
Also I have been having a think. And Dr Handsfield has said that contained absence of symptoms over the years is good evidence I have not been infected with any STI.
Well I wasn’t entirely truthful as around Feb/March time I was starting to get anxious about the event and started with very frequent urination this lasted in bouts on and off over a month. (Out of fear never got tested).
After my last test maybe two week after I also got a pain in my penis mainly at the tip but can be felt throughout this pain was quite painful and lasted constantly for two weeks.
2) Could this have been a sign of Ghon that I have missed? could I have had it cleared it with doxy and reinfected with my wife as carrier after I finished testing.
3) my wife had a cyst/lump on her vagina around feb time. I can’t remember exactly where this was located but it was inside her vagina caused mild discomfort and persisted for around a week or two before popping in the bath, no recurrence. But also didn’t seek medical advice.
4) we have been trying for a baby for around 1 year now with no success. Her periods are irregular which is new to her. Late or early no pattern at all.
Could any STI present in this way in both me and my wife, and if so which ones?. Does this new information change your view Dr Handsfield.
I fully expect a scolding for a anxity driven post, but if you can humour me that would be ni
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42 months ago
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Wow… sorry Doctors I have just re read this back (and Dr Handsfields comments) and realise I’m way of the deep end with this.
Sorry - feel free not to answer or just give very basic details.
I’m aware you are of the opinion that me and my wife are STI free and nothing will change that. Sorry I had a moment it’s gone now.
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
42 months ago
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Welcome back, but sorry you found it necessary -- for the reasons you clearly understand yourself. You're clearly on two tracks: an apparent intellectual understanding that the risks were low and you have no STI from the events described, and have not infected your wife with anything; and your "right brain" emotional difficulties that reflect remorse over a sexual decision you regret. My main advice is to do your best to focus on the former aspects and not confuse STI issues with the emotional ones. If you continue to find yourself obsessed with the exposure a few years ago, professional counseling may be a serious consideration. Or maybe discuss the situation with your wife: in my experience, many people with inherently strong relationships find such discussions cathartic and helpful. Of course you're in a better position to judge that possibility than I am.
Doxycycline and other antibiotics do not make tests falsely negative except by curing the infection. Your negative results show you were not infected with gonorrhea, chlamydia, or syphilis, with no realistic possibility you were infected with false negative results. (Your terminology is backward, by the way: you mention "false positive" tests, but false negative is what you mean.)
No STI causes frequent urination or urinary urgency. (As it happens, my colleague Dr. Hook was the senior investigator on one of the main research studies that drew this conclusion.) And no STI causes skin cysts of the sort your wife may have had. Also STIs do not cause irregular periods and undoubtedly no STI explains your potential fertility problem. (Going off the STI track for a moment, the standard criterion to initiate an infertility evaluation is 12 months of regular unprotected sex with intent to conceive, without success. But I am very confident this has nothing to do with the sexual exposure on your mind -- although I can understand how the last year's experience may have heightened your anxiety about it.)
I'm glad to see the last sentence of your follow-up comment! I hope these remarks help you maintain that confidence. Let me know if anything isn't clear.
HHH, MD
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42 months ago
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Thanks for your detailed response doctor! You are right in fighting logic with guilt.
In regards to telling my wife I wish I could but too much has passed now it would end us especially if I told he the full extent. So it’s not a realist option and I’d only do it if there is any sort of chance she’s at risk from me, which I’m starting to realise she is not. Phew!
Can I just ask how come most websites state that frequent urination is a symptom of STI? One even states “frequent urge to urinate even straight after finishing” (which is exactly how I felt). Is it simply NEVER a symptom of STI or is it a RARE symptom.
Also the penis pain I felt, mainly at the tip but up and down the shaft (internally) this was constant and definitely present for 1-2 week before clearing spontaneously. This ranges from mild to severe throughout the two week. This was the only symptom I have had after testing so I think my main concern. Any thoughts on this? From a STI point of view? I was absent of discharge (I checked when I had this pain, no discharge, Is this reassuring), I also never felt pain or burning when urinating (or at least no increase in pain).
Not sure it matters but this came on two-three weeks after my 3rd and final STI test.
In general would an STI only present this way? Would this be a symptom of STI or is the pain just on urination? Would an STI pain/symptoms clear over a week or two without meds?
Please let me know your thoughts. I value your expertise and I know your not at all worried about me so, by proxy, im not worried about me. But interested to here your thoughts.
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
42 months ago
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It's a common belief that urinary symptoms of this sort can be caused by STIs, especially gonorrhea or chlamydia, but it is wrong for males. It is almost entirely limited to women, and even then usually they are due to non sexually transmitted urinary tract infections. Most or all professional (or professionally moderated) websites know all this, but other sources may not. I always recommend that online searching on STIs be limited to professionally run or moderated sources, and especially to avoid sites run by and for infected or worried non-professionals.
The penile pain you report, without discharge, also is an atypical STI symptom. No STI is likely to present in this fashion.
You can't go through life attributing every genital area twitch or tingle to the sexual event that is so dominating your thoughts. Let it go!
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42 months ago
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Thank you Doctor.
I’ll try and move on without concern I realise I can’t live my life like I am doing.
Can I ask for a risk assessment of one more potential thing all things considered.
I did perform oral sex on this male also, I didn’t like it so wasn’t long but I did persist for a little while, so not a trivial encounter. I didn’t mention this as because I don’t give cunnilingus to my wife I know it’s not an issue. HOWEVER. When we got home from a Xmas party near the time that these exposures happened I do remember my wife letting me perform oral sex on her.
So if I got Ghon of this male in my throat is it likely to have been passed to my wife via cunnilingus, and then me not catch this OR not show any symptoms. (Or atypical symptoms as discussed)
on my 3rd test it did include a oral and rectal swap so I know I was clear of everything by then but in the meantime is one performance of cunnilingus likely to transmit anything?
I’m trying to hold onto the facts, can you check these for me, add delete as needed.
. oral sex is safer sex so less likely to transmit, even if one party is infected. If I was to catch anything from oral it’s a symptomatic infection. So I’d have known.
. Ghon will show obvious symptoms. Which I even with everything I explained haven’t had. Or at least you don’t think so.
. I have been tested which could have been positive if wife still passing me things.
. If he had Ghon of the penis he would have been symptomatic so chances is he wasn’t infected. (Just on this point how does Ghon spread orally if it’s so commonly symptomatic?)
. Even if I got Ghon and my wife had it too over the fullness of time we would have cleared this.
. If one of us wouldn’t have cleared it the other could have reinfected the other and with each new round of infection, obvious symptoms are likely. As in I may be asymptomatic once but after having sex more times I would eventually get discharge right?
So if we are talking odds they are exceptionally in my favour or even to the point it’s not about odds it’s just a none possibility.
One final point if you can I have recently read a study that had your name on that seems to hint at the fact that asymptomatic Ghon is a concern and not rare, but now you advise it’s very rare to be asymptomatic. Why the change since this study?
Thanks again for all your help over our two interactions I know the thread will close after you newest comment so it’s a shame I won’t be able to thank you! But take my thanks now in anticipation of your response.
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
42 months ago
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Almost every comment includes additional exposure events or symptoms that you "forgot" to mention previously. Then you "don't give cunnilingus to your wife" and in the next breath you did so. I don't know what to believe or react to.
The scenario of oral exposure to a male followed soon by cunnilingus with your wife could transmit gonorrhea to you and then her. But the odds are extremely low.
All your bulleted statements are accurate.
You flatter my be digging so deeply into these issues online that you quote the very first research I did back, when my research career was beginning, in the 1970s, involving asymptomatic urethral gonorrhea. What we didn't know at the time is that when we did those studies, particular strains of gonorrhea that were more likely to cause asymptomatic infection were especially common. Those types now are rare. At present, probably under one case in a thousand of urethral gonorrhea in males causes no symptoms.
Correct that this concludes this thread. Please also note the forum policy against repeated anxiety driven questions on the same topic. This will have to be your last one; future new questions about this exposure, testing, and your fears about HIV and other STIs will receive no reply and the posting fee will not be refunded. This policy is based on compassion, not criticism, and to reduce temptations to keep paying for questions with obvious answers. In addition, experience shows that continued answers tend to prolong users' anxieties rather than reducing them -- which seems to be the case in your two threads. Finally, such questions have little educational value for other users, one of the forum's main purposes. Thanks for your understanding.
I do hope the discussions have been helpful. But the greatest help would come with professional counseling. Good luck.
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