HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743

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One of the question with a lot of people that are sexually active have is how to prevent having a sexually-transmitted disease or infection you know what. Since this is such a big topic to both you guys here Jesse Scharfenberg is the Chief Executive Officer of health first network and just the entity is the public relations and education specialist. It is a much of STI's are scary. What can we do to prevent them. Use a condom that the number one thing is to use a condom and we don't see individuals using condoms anymore. Why is that so there's many reasons that people don't use condoms anymore. One thing is that we have really great access, birth control methods so they know that if their partner is on a birth control method there's no risk of pregnancy. So we kind of forget about the STI side of things and preventing those. The other aspect is we have some really great resources to prevent HIV in a taxi take medication that's prophylaxis so that you could have sexual intercourse with someone with HIV and not get HIV. So now that were not wearing about preventing HIV as much because there's other medications that are working for that people kind of forget about having to use a condom to prevent chlamydia and gonorrhea and herpes and warts because those aren't thought as long term diseases or a consequence infections. Here's a question, although still viable diseases. Yes, we are seeing large numbers of chlamydia still occurring gonorrhea for the last five years we have seen increases in STI's across the United States in all categories. So this isn't something that is even plateauing or that were seen going away by any means not just the Jesse mentioned using condoms is that as an educator. Is that something you have to teach people how to do, how to use a condom. Yes, absolutely. So when we go into education for students or we are doing outreach in the community. We make sure that we let folks know about condoms how to use them and we can provide demonstrations as well so we are able to show how to use internal and external condoms, or more commonly known as male and female condom okay you got me there. What is an internal condom. So an internal condom is sometimes still known as a female condom but that is a condom that can be used internally as the name would imply, so that could be utilized in someone with of the China they would insert the condom internally and it would provide protection that way. So you would use either the internal or external condom, but you would not use them both together to use one or the other and that internal condom can also provide some additional STI prevention externally. So when were thinking of those STI's that can be spread through skin to skin contact. The internal condom can provide some additional protection by having some of that condom outside of the body as well much in my stupid for not knowing what those are. No, but I feel that a lot of people don't know what they are. They're not commonly used is something that we encourage and we give out to all of our clients on a normal basis is using the internal condom should be used. It should be widely known but it's not. We think there's a lot of education that just focuses on the external or the male condom and when education occurs. They just forget about the internal condom. The other great thing about the internal condom is that it can be used for a no sex as well and exit points. The annual cavity. So one thing that we talk about. STI prevention ever it is that all penile to the badge. No sex will actually STI Xerox you can get Estes and Uranus. You can get it on your penis or in your Regina. So when were talking about. STI prevention were talking about. If you're having oral sex, wearing a condom to follow it out. That is why there are flavored so we went to the Reading is coming. We don't know that there are flavored condoms so if you are having oral sex and the penis is going into your mouth that individuals should be wearing a condom. There's also what we call dental dams, which are they got almost like a piece of plastic that would go over the national area that an individual could put there over the penis just so that there's for the protection from the skin to skin contact so that were not transmitting infections between individuals just review offer both of these types of condoms at health first network. Yes, we have both of these and all of our clinics available for anyone who's looking for them so people can pick these up regardless of sex, so again as we said for the internal and external condom with health first network to talk about. STI prevention. What about if you know you had unprotected sex and you're worried about you know, did I catch something or did so in noted something slick by the combo Maury got a bit your burner. It is your testing available yes. So we do testing for STI's and just as you said it whether someone has had unprotected sex, and even if they had protected sex, condoms work really really great at preventing STS, but since they aren't 100% we do recommend getting screened routinely for STI's. If you are sexually active, so at least once a year on the everyone should be getting screen for STI's, and if you are having a change in partner. If you have multiple partners then we would likely recommend getting screen more routinely so you can talk with one of our providers and then they would be able to let you know how frequently to be screened for that at health first. We test for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HPV genital herpes genital warts trichomoniasis or sometimes known as trick and HIV is there like a shot or vaccine or something that that somebody could take to prevent STI's there is a vaccine is called got a cell and it will protect you against nine of the most common cancer causing strains of HPV, which is the human papilloma virus. So what we see is that human papilloma virus is There's a lot of people out there that have cervical cancer that don't know that they have it or have the precancerous cells for cervical cancer correct. Yeah that's very true. So that is why when individuals come in for their annual exams. They are on schedules to have their Done and then we also do eight what's called HPV Co. testing. So we are taking samples of the cervix to be looking for the HPV virus as well. As part of the FP OS and is part of the family-planning only services or F because so with the Gardasil vaccine in the annual exams that Pap smear the HPV co-testing all of that is covered FP OS so individuals are getting these services at zero cost and were do we go about getting appointments. You call 1-800-246-5743 in nine counties in north-central Wisconsin