Last updated on November 21, 2024
Question
Hey there. I’m a 21-year-old guy and have had protected sex before. I know it doesn’t matter if it was protected or not, but I’m worried now that it might start to matter already.
I have recently found some blister-like wounds on the head of my penis. It’s red, and I’m not sure if it gave out puss. But I went to see a doctor regarding this, and he gave me an antiseptic cream because he mentioned that it could be due to the abrasion between it and my underwear and that the area there is often moist and warm. I asked if it was also due to skin dryness, and he didn’t quite rule that out either. So that aside, since I have applied the cream already, over that one-week period, I skipped a couple of times because I was down with a fever and thus wasn’t really concerned about anything else but just to recover.
Moving on, I found, of late, some bumps on my scrotum. I don’t know if it’s related to my shaving of the hair around the area as well as the pubic area – I just felt I had to so I could present my condition well to the doctor then, without fuss and hassle over the hair down under. I felt itching and pain on my scrotum, and it is very irritating. I do masturbate once in a while, but it has been a week or so since I last did before all these occurred. These bumps, about 5-6 of them, have a shiny surface and are the size of pin-heads, only slightly bigger, and even when I’m still, it itches madly. I don’t know if it’s the bumps or not that causes the itch. I just applied the antiseptic cream given to me, hoping the itch would go away; it did, but it has since come back. Also, my scrotum looks weird, unlike before – it crumples up, and often, it gets really hard and taut. I tried to soften it up and let it expand by having a warm bath, but it didn’t quite help either.
Back to my penis-head problem – the opening of the urethra now has the blister-like thing aforementioned. All in all, all these problems amount to one thing – irritation, itchiness, pain as well as my genitalia now becomes really sensitive to abrasions of even the slightest touch of the fabric of my underwear, etc. I did some research on the internet, and I thought this was what I was suffering from. Maybe you could help see if they are or not one, if not none of them: scabies, genital herpes, genital warts, jock itch, eczema, cysts, angiokeratoma.
Also, I’ve got skin irritation on my wrist, joint of fingers and arms, and inner thighs. From what I’ve read thus far, these, too, are related to the problems above, aren’t they?
I’m really beat in this. Please help and I know you could as how you have in the previous problems posted here this far! I’d really appreciate it. i know the most probable solution you’d give me if to seek treatment from a doctor or a dermatologist, or have all of these checked at the very least. I’d just like to know what I might be suffering from to get the rough idea of it so I could relate to them better.
Answer
“Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; he who does so destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonor he will get, and his reproach will not be wiped away” (Proverbs 6:32-33).
I’m sure I sound dull repeating myself so often, but I don’t know how else to get this simple concept through young men’s heads. You get so caught up with the sexual excitement of what is going on between your legs that your brain shuts down. Is not just you, but it saddens me that such things don’t have to be.
Please realize that I’m only going on what you have said. I haven’t seen your problem areas. If I had to make a guess, your symptoms point to either scabies or genital herpes, but I’m puzzled why your doctor didn’t do the tests for them. You leave me with the impression that your doctor didn’t test you for sexually transmitted diseases, and it would appear to me that should have been the first thing he did.
If it is genital herpes, the symptoms you are giving are for someone who has had genital herpes for a while. Oftentimes, the symptoms of genital herpes don’t appear immediately. The virus goes through cycles, and the first few cycles might not be noticeable if the infection is mild. However, if enough was caught, the first outbreak occurs about two weeks after the virus was caught. The sores will heal on their own in two to four weeks. Thus, even though you were “treating” the symptoms, you didn’t get rid of the problem. As the disease progresses, you get secondary outcroppings of sores, which are often accompanied by symptoms that make you think you have the flu (think about the fever you had). Most people have four to five outbreaks in the first year. Thereafter, the outbreaks continue but are spaced farther apart.
More likely you have scabies. Scabies are the result of a small insect called a mite. The bumps are caused by mites boring into the skin, resulting in extreme itching that is usually worse at night. If you look closely at the bumps, you might see fine red lines radiating out from the bumps that almost look like scratch marks. “Scabies may involve the webs between the fingers, the wrists and the backs of the elbows, the knees, around the waist and umbilicus, the axillary folds, the areas around the nipples, the sides and backs of the feet, the genital area, and the buttocks” [MedicineNet.com]. The mite cannot fly, so it spreads through skin-to-skin contact. Sexual contact is the most common means of transmitting this insect. eMedicineHealth has several pictures of what scabies look like on various areas of the body.
I suppose you used condoms, thinking this would protect you. The problem is that condoms don’t eliminate the risk of sexually transmitted diseases; they only lower the chance of getting the diseases. For example, genital herpes is transmitted from skin-to-skin contact. It transfers most readily when the other person has a sore, and you touch it, especially with your genitals since the skin of your genitals is thin. A condom only covers the shaft of your penis, but that still leaves a lot of skin exposed. And then there is always the possibility that the condom breaks or has small leaks that you didn’t notice. Plus, most men don’t put on a condom until they are about to have intercourse, but that leaves their genitals exposed during foreplay.
But with scabies, the insect is easily present on other areas of the skin which would not be covered by a condom.
The problem with diseases like genital herpes is that there is no cure. All a doctor can do for you is give you medication to suppress the virus outbreaks. Genital herpes is bad enough by itself, but it also weakens your immune system, making you vulnerable to other, more deadly diseases. You need to see a doctor immediately and ask for a complete set of tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Just because your main symptoms point to herpes, it doesn’t mean that you haven’t also picked up a few other diseases along with it.
If you have scabies, the treatment is straightforward. You get a prescription insecticide that completely covers your skin from the neck down each night for several nights in a row. You have to follow the directions because you must kill off all the adults currently alive on your skin, as well as any babies that might hatch later.
Question:
Thanks for your time, sir.
What you have analyzed really freaked me out. Contracting an STD was last on my mind.
Regarding the tests that my doctor hadn’t done on me; then he did check my genitalia thoroughly, which means both my penis and scrotum, but the thing that he was interested in was the blisters on the head of my penis. So does that mean my wife has genital herpes and that I contracted it from her? To date, the last time we had sex was in December 2006, which was last year. I haven’t been in contact (skin or not) with her since because I’m currently working overseas, along with my father-in-law, at his manufacturing firm here. I’m just curious; I’ve only had sex with her just once unprotected in the course of our 1-year marriage this far. That makes it just twice we’ve had sexual intercourse. I’d say that (the one protected) was our only chance after the first before I had to leave for another country. And worry not, I’m loyal to her, and I don’t sleep around.
However, if it is genital herpes that I’m suffering from, what are the measures that I should from now on take to not cause further damage? i.e, intercourse with wife in the future, skin contact as mentioned by you, etc
Once again, thanks for your time.
Answer:
As I mentioned in my prior note, I am quite limited in what I can tell you. You listed symptoms that point to either scabies (most likely) or herpes, which was contracted a while ago. But I can’t see the blisters, nor can I be certain that you mentioned all the facts. For example, you have changed your story since your first note. In your first note, you only stated that you had protected sex. In this note, you claimed to have sex once unprotected and once protected — that is not the same thing. In addition, by purposely leaving out that you are married and only stating that you had protected sex, you wrote to purposely leave the impression that you had committed fornication. Add to this that in your second note, you claim that STDs were the last thing on your mind, yet it was in your first note that you listed two different STDs and one usually spread by sex insect problem as possibilities.
As I said, I only know what a person writes. All I know now is that your statements are unreliable. Even if I take your current word that you have only had sexual intercourse twice in the last year, with your playing word games, I cannot decide whether you are “forgetting” to mention times that you had oral sex (because you would claim it is not intercourse) or “forgetting” to mention visiting a prostitute just before your marriage. I hope you will be honest with your doctor.
Your symptoms should be taken seriously — more seriously than you have been. Genital herpes cannot be confirmed by simple visual inspection. Your doctor would need blood tests, and even then, the best blood tests currently available are prone to give false negatives in a few cases. Thus, when symptoms persist, the tests need to be repeated. You need to ask a doctor to run a full set of tests, especially for STDs. Based on his conclusion, you will be told what you need to do to either eliminate or manage your disease or infection.
My usefulness is at an end because bad input leads to bad advice.