Health is Wealth programme 31 - 3dec2024

The Health Sloth on Connemara Community Radio, a weekly program supported by funding from Commissioner Mon with a television license fee. Oh Doctor, I'm in trouble. Well, good with Grisha Groom. For every time a certain man is standing next to me, a flash comes to my face and my pulse begins to race. 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There's a lot of different types of infections that can have a lot of different symptoms. And sometimes you might have no symptoms whatsoever. So people might think a section of their infections is sometimes almost trivial. But they can have some consequences down the line for people. You know, women can have issues with pelvic inflammatory disease. Women can have issues with fertility and other infections. And of course, you're going to go on... Other areas around the body, exactly. Well, you're infecting other people, too. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, if somebody... If you wouldn't mind just sort of going through some of the more common symptoms that people do have, that should alert them. Yeah, so I think that most people might be more aware, especially with community and gun area things such as pain on prime urination or discomfort in the genital area for men or women. Sometimes you can get discharge inflammation. Those would be the most common symptoms that people might notice. Again, if people have any of those symptoms, we'd recommend them to not hang around. This is the kind of thing that they really should wait on. Like I said, these infections are extremely treatable usually with one or two doses of antibiotics. So it's really not overly taxing to treat them, which is great. We would encourage them not to hang around, wait on them, or like you mentioned, especially pass them on to other people potentially. If you have symptoms and you're concerned about having symptoms about a sexually transmitted infection, don't wait. Just call your local GP or your local sexual health clinic. It's important to know whether people are concerned about maybe having had a risky sexual experience or concerned about maybe being exposed to somebody who had a sexually transmitted infection but don't have symptoms themselves. They could do either of those things, check them with their GP or their sexual health clinic. It's also possible for them to get a free home STI kit from SH24.ie where you can put in your own details and get a kit sent out to you, complete the test yourself with the instructions and send it back and get your test done that way. Sorry, could you repeat the address there that you gave? Yeah, of course. So it's SH24.ie, so SH, that is my number, 24.ie, which is a service that's available for anyone over the age of 18. It's completely free to check for a number of sexually transmitted infections in Ireland. If people want other information or a query for us, there's another website called sexualwellbeing.ie where you can get more information. Okay, and to find out where the nearest ST clinic is, is it just obviously going to be in your local hospital or is there a list of them somewhere? You can get a list of them on the agency's website, agency.ie, where you can check your local county hospital, the closest from Galway to available are the Galway University Hospital and of course, Yonge and Glasgow, Badin and Slough. So if that's people in one of our regions, it might be most handy to check them with your GP before going to such a distance. But like I mentioned, if you don't have any symptoms but you just would like to have a blood check on you for a sexually transmitted infection, the home testing kit is a really good option. Right, now if somebody does go along and they have a test, do they get the results right away or does it take a bit of time? Do the results come to them in a few days? It takes a few days, yeah. And how would they inform people? Is it sort of by text or is it by phone call? Exactly, so for the home testing kit, it's a text message. Again, it might work differently depending on which sexual health care you go to, the higher distance practices or GP practices. But usually they'll text you for the home testing kit about your blood and they may give you advice about where to follow up or who to follow up with. Is a home test very easy for people to do? Is there any danger that they're missing something if they're doing it themselves? No, it's very effective and thankfully very straightforward. We've had demonstrations for years, we've given demonstrations, really clear instructions as well as video links that people can find if they want to query them, like I mentioned, there's a website sexualwellbeing.ie to answer any additional questions. Again, if you're not certain, if you have concerns, there is always the option of perhaps going to your GP or to your local sexual health clinic. Right, well that's a very useful one actually to know that they can look up the sexual wellbeing site and find out a lot more about it. But perhaps it's not a bad idea for any young people in particular who are sexually active to just check that out anyway and then just learn, just educate themselves about it. Exactly, and like you mentioned, especially anyone who is sexually active is engaged in sexual activity thus without using bariatric contraception, has potentially been exposed to essentially a transgenital infection. So we would encourage as many people as possible to engage with that service and get themselves tested. And it's a bit like so many other diseases that early diagnosis and treatment is very, very important. The quicker you can get at it, the better the results are going to be. Yes, exactly, and like you mentioned, not just from the treatment point of view, but as you're prescribing, have them on to the infections that anybody else, love them or don't love them, which is really good. And we've already mentioned it, but people think of these infections as being simple and easy to treat, which they are, but you just don't want to wait long because it's likely to take a long time anyway with the more tension behind it. Okay, I suppose the best thing is that before people are going out to parties and perhaps will not be fully aware of their behaviour and so on, unfortunately, as we get older, we're perhaps less likely. So this is why, really, you are targeting the younger people. Yes, exactly, and just to don't feel pressurised or feel like uncomfortable to say that, you know, I'm not certain, so I'd like to eat a condom or use viral contraception. It's really the only way to prevent sexually transmitted infections that's available. So again, like you said, it's over the next month or this kind of 50% period if you're not certain and there's no pressure on people, but first of all, use viral contraception, especially the condom. If you're concerned about anything but have no symptoms, you can avail of a sexual testing kit from sh44.org and if you have any symptoms or are concerned about having symptoms of a sexually transmitted infection, don't wait around and check in with your GP or local sexual health clinic. Right, so Terry, we should have mentioned before, really, the importance of condom use. I mean, does it protect completely or is it just partial protection? There's never a 100% success rate in any treatment or any prevention, but by far the most effective method to prevent transmission of sexually transmitted infections. So kind of correcting regulation of condoms is still the gold standard for us to prevent any kind of transmission of sexually transmitted infections. Okay. Well, I think you've given us a very clear picture there and I do hope that people who are listening will be taking that all on board. It's quite sad that we're coming into the Christmas period where everybody's going out enjoying themselves, but we have to be aware of the dangers that that involves as well, which I suppose is really what we're talking about here. So, Dr. Neil Highland, thank you very, very much for joining us and for telling us all about the services that are available to people and we do hope that people will use those services should they need to. So, thank you. Thanks very much, Mary. The Health Sloth on Connemara Community Radio. A weekly programme supported by funding from Commission the Mom with the television licence fee. Oh, Doctor, I'm in trouble. Well, goodness gracious me. For every time a certain man is standing next to me, a flash comes to my face and my pulse begins to race. It goes boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom-boody-boom. Well, goodness gracious me.