Archive for June, 2007

With the increase in the rate of new cases every year, today, gonorrhea is becoming the most common Sexual Transmitted Disease (STD) worldwide.

It is a highly contagious disease, which is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Gonorrhea can infect both men and women. In women, it can infect your vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes. Moreover, it can also infect your mouth, throat and anus.

Today, you have several laboratory tests available to diagnose gonorrhea. Its diagnosis tests are simple. It takes just a few minutes. Basically, these tests try to locate the trace of the gonorrhoeae bacteria in your body.

A health care provider can diagnose gonorrhea by collecting a sample fluid from the infected mucus membrane: cervix, urethra, rectum, or throat and send it to the laboratory for examination.

Moreover, these tests can also identify other STDs, such as chlamydia, syphilis and HIV that commonly occur with gonorrhea.

Actually, the testing technologies are subdivided into two categories: batch testing in a laboratory and point-of-care testing for single or a limited number of tests.

Laboratory-based tests include culture, NAATs, nucleic acid hybridization, and ELISA, EIA tests whereas Point-of-care tests have long included the Gram-stained tests.

Genital herpes is a common sexual transmitted disease.

Genital Herpes is an infection of the genitals caused by the herpes simplex virus (HSV).

Actually, HSV-1 And HSV-2 are two types of the herpes simplex virus that affects the genitals.

Mostly, HSV-1 cause herpes on the face and HSV-2 causes genital herpes. This virus, usually, enters your body via small breaks in your skin or mucous membranes.

Most of you, usually, when infected with genital herpes will unaware of the virus presence in the body, because you often experience no genital herpes symptoms or mild symptoms that too unnoticeable.

No matter whether you exhibit mild genital herpes symptoms or no symptoms, you are likely to pass the virus to your sexual partner.

In general, the herpes symptoms are known as outbreaks. If genital herpes symptoms develop then they differ greatly from person to person. Normally, the genital herpes symptoms will develop between 2-7 days after exposure to the virus.

Some times, you cannot experience the genital herpes symptoms until months or years after being infected to the simplex virus.

Fibroids are the tumors made up of muscle cells and other tissues that develop in the walls of the uterus (womb).

The fibroids are also known as fibromyomas, leiomyomas or myomas.

Mostly, they are benign (non-cancerous), and do not cause symptoms.

It is also found that fibroids are present in one out of every four women of childbearing age.

It tends to disappear after the menopause.

Although the cause of fibroids is unknown, they are influenced by estrogen. The chances of having fibroids are high when estrogen levels are high (during a woman’s middle years) and when estrogen levels drop (after the menopause) they stop growing.

With the recent studies, according to US, it is found that the occurrence of fibroids is nine times more in black women than in white women. However, the reason behind this occurrence is unclear.

The chances of having fibroids are high in women who are over seventy kg. Even this is also due to higher levels of estrogen. They develop in women who have no children, probably with some genetic determinant, and in smokers (rarely).

Endometriosis is a disease affecting a woman’s uterus, a place where a baby grows when you become pregnant.

It is a most common condition affecting more than eighty-nine percent females of reproductive age all over the world.

It got its name from the word endometrium, the tissue that lines the uterus (womb).

If you are of childbearing age, but not pregnant, then endometrium usually discard each month as menstrual flow.

The endometriosis symptom occurs with this monthly cycle of the endometrial cells and blood accumulation.

Endometriosis is described as a tissue that appears and acts like endometrium, but is found outside the uterus, normally in the abdominal cavity. It occurs when the endometrium that lines the uterus develops at the abdominal cavity or some other place.

Mostly, the endometrial cells implant on the ovaries, fallopian tubes and large intestine and rarely spreads upward into the sternum and chest cavity.

The blood that is trapped irritates the abdominal tissue, which can form cysts. However, these cysts can bleed or burst and form scar tissue and adhesions. Thereby, this scar tissue and adhesions typically ties the internal organs together leading to pain and discomfort, especially during your menstrual period.

Diabetes is a chronic health condition that occurs when your body is incapable of producing insulin and breaking down sugar (glucose) appropriately in the blood.

You can identify the occurrence of this disease with the symptoms such as hunger, thirst, sudden weight loss, excessive urination, and dehydration.

However, your diabetes can fall in any of these three types.

Type1 Diabetes:

Type1 is also known as Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) or juvenile-onset diabetes.

It is an autoimmune disease that results when your body’s immune system destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.

Thus, the pancreas then produces little or no insulin that in turn can cause your body to function with an insulin deficiency.

So, type1 occurs when there is a lack of sufficient insulin secretion by the pancreas. Type 1 is so common that about 5-10 percent of all diabetes cases are in the United States. It usually develops in children and young adults, but can appear at any age.

Certain viral infections constricted during childhood or youth can lead to this immune system malfunction, and also leads to diabetes in later stages.

Chlamydia is the most rising sexually transmitted disease (STD).

In the United States, about four million new cases of Chlamydia are frequently occurring among sexually active adolescents, young adults and individuals with multiple partners are at highest risk.

Actually, a tiny bacteria Chlamydia trachomatis cause chlamydia.

This sexual transmitted disease (STD) is known as a “silent” disease because about 75% of infected women experience no chlamydia symptoms.

Sometimes, the chlamydia is asymptomatic and it becomes very difficult to find out how long you remain infectious but if chlamydia symptoms appear, they usually emerge within one to three weeks after infected.

When the chlamydia symptoms do appear in women, like you, they may be mild and passing, making them easy to overlook. Moreover, the bacteria primarily infect the cervix and the urethra.

Then, you may have symptoms such as yellowish vaginal discharge; smelly vaginal discharge; painful or frequent urination; a burning sensation during urination.

But when the infection passes from the cervix to the fallopian tubes, tubes that carry eggs from the ovaries to the uterus, you may experience lower abdominal and lower back pain, pain during intercourse, nausea, fever, or bleeding between menstrual periods. Sometimes, you may not experience even these signs or symptoms.

Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with powerful drugs to destroy leukemia cells by obstructing their development and reproduction.

These powerful drugs are generally known as “anticancer” drugs.

The drugs can be given intravenously (through a vein), by subcutaneously (injection under the skin), by intramuscularly (injected into muscle), by intrathecally (injected into cerebrospinal fluid), or by mouth.

In general, this therapy is used by itself or in combination with radiation therapy, surgery, hormonal therapy, biological therapy, or a combination of these.

The chemotherapy can be used to treat leukemia and its types.

Leukemia is a disease (cancer) that affects your bone marrow and blood and is characterized by the uncontrolled growth of blood cells. It is a rare disease with a very serious and severe condition, which can even lead to death. Moreover, treating your leukemia cancer may be painful and too hard.

The leukemia is divided into categories: myelogenous or lymphocytic where each of these can be acute or chronic. These two terms ‘myelogenous’ and ‘lymphocytic’ indicates the type of cell involved.

Cervical cancer is the cancer of the cervix.

It is a disease caused by the abnormal growth and division of cells that forms in the lining of the cervix.

It is the second common form of cancer that affects women today.

It is very common in middle age women and older.

The statistics of cervical cancer in the United States, according to American Cancer Society (ACS), shows that about 11,150 women are diagnosing with this cancer and approximately 3,670 women die from this cancer every year.

To understand more about cervical cancer, it is important to note what a cervix is first. The cervix is the lower part of the uterus (womb) that connects the uterus to the vagina (birth canal) in a woman’s body.

Usually, cervical cancer exhibits no symptoms to detect the presence of cancer in your body. It is known as a slow growing form of cancer. When cancer develops in your body, the healthy cells in the cervix begin to change into abnormal cells, which then turn into pre-cancerous cells. If left untreated, these pre-cancerous cells will turn into cancer.