The Condom Slipped Off – Do I have an STI?!

[00:00] [Ed] If you ever had the condom slip off when playing with other partners,
we cover what you need to do when you discover you have an STI.
You, your partner and your sexual partner’s health is important.

[00:18] [Guest] Welcome to Swinger University, your horizontal enrichment program,
offering you the naked facts about swinging.
Here are your hosts, Ed and Phoebe.
All right, let’s get into it.

[00:38] [Phoebe] You had an amazing sexual encounter, and now you think you have an STI.

[00:46] [Unknown] So, what do you do? Well, there’s three things to this.

[00:50] [Phoebe] You’ve got your mental aspect when you’re all freaking out, just me,
and then your physical part that you have to take care of.
And then you have your social aspect, you know,
notifying the person that you played with.

[01:05] [Unknown] Mentally, try not to stress out.
I know it’s hard, but try not to freak.

[01:11] [Phoebe] But you are going to freak a little, but try not to freak too much.
Google the symptoms, take a look to see what’s out there,
but I will shorten it up for you.
The most common STI that you’re going to get in a Swinger environment is Tricama Niasis.
It has a parasite, I know it sounds gross, but it’s treatable.
You get an antibiotic and has the similar symptoms to BVB.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We’re going to get into that in a second.
What should they not do when they start researching all this stuff?

[01:47] [Ed] First thing you want to be very careful of is looking at photos.
And one of the sources that we provide down below is WebMD.
WebMD is pretty scary.

[01:59] [Unknown] And a lot of the images are horrifying.

[02:02] [Phoebe] They have horrible images?
I don’t remember them having horrible images.

[02:07] [Ed] There are some photographic examples of what these things look like.
One of the unfortunate things is a lot of the symptoms and the pictures look very similar.
So a whole bunch of them look almost the same.
It’s tricky to look at photos and say that’s what I have or that’s what it looks like.

[02:26] [Phoebe] Exactly.

[02:27] [Ed] It’s really important to have a conversation with your partner about this.
Be supportive of each other.
Reach out to your swinger friends and have a conversation with them about it.
If they’ve been through it, what their tips are about it and see where you go from there.

[02:42] [Unknown] Right, get an action plan, figure out what you’re going to do.

[02:46] [Phoebe] After you’ve done your research, what’s my next step, and then act on it soon.

[02:51] [Unknown] Because things can, they progress.

[02:55] [Phoebe] They tend to get worse before they get better.
And they don’t always get better.
Some things will resolve on their own.
Oh, we are going to get into that in a second.
Physical.
Now we’re talking about the most common swinger STI, Trichomoniasis.
We’re going to give you some highlights as to what that is.
And then you can get all the needy-gritty details.
We have a sexual health playlist on YouTube,
for you guys to listen to on BV, which is bacterial vaginosis,
trichomoniasis, several episodes on STIs.
Be sure to listen to those.
If you don’t know what trichomoniasis is, it is a parasite.
It is curable with an antibiotic.
Like I mentioned, typically there is an odor, smells like fish.
The symptoms will appear anywhere from five to 28 days.
They can clear up on their own.
The symptoms can clear, but the parasite will not go away
until you get the antibiotics.
Both men and women can have it.
The men will carry it.
It’ll stay in the urethra.
If you don’t have both partners on antibiotics,
you just keep passing it back and forth.
It can also cause other health issues for you.
It makes you more susceptible to HPV and other
vaginal issues and STIs.
So you do want to get that treated.

[04:16] [Ed] One of the other things to think about a lot of times
the partners you’re playing with don’t realize they have it.
Yes.
They’re not aware of it or they don’t know what it is.
They’ve maybe noticed the odor,
but they haven’t figured out the solution to it.
It’s good to have that conversation with them,
because they’ll become aware of it by the way.
You may have trigminisus because of this.
It is a delicate subject and it’s not an easy one to broach,

[04:47] [Unknown] but it’s kind of important,

[04:49] [Ed] because they’re going to continue spreading it to other people.

[04:52] [Unknown] Right.

[04:52] [Phoebe] The good thing is it’s not life-threatening.
It’s annoying.
It affects your sex life and it keeps you down for a while,
but it’s treatable.
And in seven days, you’re on your way again.
Now, you can’t drink when you’re on that medicine.
So if you like to have a nightcap,
you’re going to have to pass that up.
But one thing I did want to say, too,
was that sometimes with that condition,
depending on where you are with the infection level,
you won’t notice the smell until you’ve actually started to engage in sex.
Right.
Right.
And that’s documented.
You can find that research online.
So sometimes you find yourself in a place situation
where you’re like, holy crap, why do I smell?
What about testing?

[05:36] [Ed] So one of the first things that you can do
is create a telemedicine appointment.
So most healthcare providers provide this nowadays,
especially in the post-COVID environment.

[05:50] [Unknown] You can call in.

[05:53] [Ed] It’s a user cell phone,
you use the video conferencing feature,
and you’d have a conversation with your provider.
There are several other providers,
Whisp, Teladoc, and Amazon Clinic.
They all provide telemedicine,
and it’s pretty easy to get scheduled with them
and walk them through what your symptoms are,
and they’ll ask you a bunch of questions about that.

[06:17] [Phoebe] Yes, and those were just the top three
at the top of the first page on Google,
but there are a lot.
Right.
A lot.
In fact, I went to a few of these,
and I advanced through their selection
and prices and whatnot.
Several of them I realized were way more pricey
than I expected,
and so I went to my own insurance provider
that had their own Teladoc,
and it cost me zero dollars.
So please check your own insurance first,
and if you don’t,
and then the price isn’t good,
you know, check out these other ones as well.

[06:48] [Ed] Yeah, the other thing that you can do
is go to an urgent care facility,
and most cities have them.
They’re relatively inexpensive.
You can walk right in.
A lot of times you don’t even need an appointment.
50 bucks, 60 bucks,
and you’ve gotten an appointment.
And they’ll write a prescription for you
and off you go.
Right.

[07:09] [Phoebe] BV and Trickamaniasis are very similar.
If I hadn’t said that before,
what’s interesting about a Teladoc
is that they will want you to get tested
for Trickamaniasis.
So if you not quite sure which one you have,
just tell them your symptoms,
and then they’ll prescribe you a medicine.
The medicine is the same for both of those conditions.
And the medicine is a metronidysol.

[07:39] [Ed] Yes.

[07:40] [Phoebe] Yes.
They have an oral version,
and they have a vaginal version.
Some people like the oral version,
better than the vaginal,
vaginal can be very irritating.
Irritating, yeah.
And can kick off a yeast infection
after you’re done using that medicine.
So some people go with the oral medicine,
but that means you can’t drink.
So it’s up to you and how your body reacts.

[08:05] [Ed] Yeah, and what you want to do.
We have heard that the oral medication
is a little bit more thorough as well,
because it goes through your entire system
versus almost topically applying it inside the vaginal canal.
Right.
So it will clean you out pretty well
in terms of killing off the infection.

[08:27] [Phoebe] And if you waited a little too long
and you say you’re six months down the road
and you have this reoccurring infection going on and on and on
and it resolves itself and you’ve never been on a medicine,
you could have a urinary tract condition as well
and that’s where the oral medication will come into play.
This is all documented.

[08:46] [Unknown] I’m not just pulling this out.

[08:50] [Ed] And then probably the second most important thing
after all of this,
getting yourself treated, especially if it’s something
like trichomoniasis is go get tested.

[09:00] [Phoebe] Yeah.

[09:01] [Ed] You can go through your primary care physician,

[09:04] [Unknown] you can go through the urgent care facilities,

[09:09] [Ed] either one of those and ask for a full panel STI test.

[09:15] [Phoebe] Right, but I will say ask for the trichomoniasis test
because it’s usually not in that panel.

[09:22] [Ed] Right.
So be specific about which things you want to be tested for
because most panels are not a full spectrum panel.
Right.
They’re the most common ones that they test for.
HIV and hepatitis are on that list.
But a lot of times they won’t even test for
HPV or herbes.
So it’s good to get tested.

[09:46] [Phoebe] Right.
And I’m not advocating not getting tested,
but sometimes as a woman when you’re suffering
in your lower region is on fire,
and you need medicine that day or the next day,
you can’t wait for a doctor appointment four days down the road
and a test to come back three days later.
It’s now your seven days out and you are suffering.
Testing is great if you can wait.
But if you’re in pain and you need medicine right away,
there is a solution for that.

[10:13] [Ed] There’s also an advantage of getting tested after you treat
because then you know if you’ve got rid of it or not.
So it has an advantage.
But remember, you’ve got testing, you’ve got results,
and then you’ve got your play periods
if you’re kind of co-play with somebody else.
Make sure you get your results back before you go play again.

[10:31] [Phoebe] Right.
And they do recommend testing about three months after.
Again, just make sure.

[10:37] [Unknown] Social, there’s that social component, right?

[10:40] [Phoebe] Who did you play with?
Do you have their phone number?
Sometimes you don’t always have their phone number.

[10:44] [Unknown] If you do, please reach out to them.

[10:47] [Phoebe] If you don’t, reach out to the owner of the house party.
Maybe they can reach out to that individual for you
and ask them if to share that contact information.
But reach out to another swing or friend.
Ask them if they got this other person’s phone number.
And let them know.
Hey, I have this.
Could have come from you.
Don’t really know.
Here’s the incubation window.
Five to 28 days.
Just to let you know.
It’s curable with an antibiotic.
Heads up.
Ababa, right?
It’s just socially responsible.
And it’s it’s nice to be informed.
And you don’t really have to be embarrassed.
It can be embarrassing.
But if you’re presented in a way where it’s treatable

[11:26] [Unknown] and there’s no information is power, right?

[11:31] [Phoebe] And I think in the end, people would be very appreciative.
We had an incident where someone came back and told us
that they had an STI.
And we were very appreciative
that they shared that information with us
because it gave us the power
to right away go get tested
and get treatment if we need it to.
Right.
So I to this day appreciate that person telling me
because I had a choice
to know what to do in that in that moment
rather than just figure it out later
months down the road.
Right.
Thank goodness nothing happened to us.
In conclusion, remember to stay calm as you can be.

[12:19] [Ed] Get support.
So reach out to your friends and they’ll empathize with you
and you need to have a support group within the community.
Do your research.
Understand what it is that you have
and what your options are in terms of getting it treated.
Contact your sex partner.
Get treatment right away.
Get ahold of your doctor too.

[12:39] [Unknown] Yes.

[12:40] [Ed] They can prescribe what they need to for you
or through your telemedicine.

[12:45] [Phoebe] Yeah.
And remember to check out our sexual health playlist
for more information not covered in this episode.

[13:09] [Ed] Oh, one last thing before you go.
If this episode helped you in any way,
the single best thing you can do to support the show
is leaving a rating and review.
It takes 60 seconds and helps new people find us
when they’re searching for relationship education.
And we’ve made it easy.
Visit SwingerUniversity.com forward slash review.
All the instructions are there.
Thank you for being part of this community.
We’ll see you again soon.