Note that these symptoms are not STDs! But if you do get them, it’s nothing to worry about | Virus Super Topic

Pay attention to your body and find out if you have any sexually transmitted diseases. If you are healthy, take a walk. If you are sick, get treatment. It's no big deal.
Written by Li Qingchao (Shandong Normal University)

Shame is one of the emotions that humans are born with. It is annoying and will inexplicably "attack" your good mood. Body shame is a huge part of it. It is like an elephant in the room. It is hard to ignore it. As you get older and learn more, you suddenly find that the elephant is not that big! (Is it because a T-Rex entered your room?) Today we will talk about those things that may scare you, but are not a big deal.

Pseudo-condyloma

In the last article about HPV, we mentioned that condyloma acuminatum is a genital wart caused by certain HPVs (6, 11, 42, 44, etc., of which the first two are the most common), and is a very common sexually transmitted disease. It often occurs in the external genitalia, vagina or urethra, cervix and anus, and manifests as pink bulges on the genitals or anus, which are prone to bleeding and may cause pain.

As the name suggests, "pseudo-condyloma acuminatum" is a fake condyloma acuminatum. It also looks like a pink bump in the private parts. Both men and women may have it, but it is painless, itchy, and not contagious, and does not require treatment.

So what exactly is wrong with it?

Male hairy penis crown (Hirsuties coronae glandis) In men, pseudo-condyloma acuminatum mainly exists in the coronal sulcus and frenulum of the penis, also known as "penile pearly papules". This "papule" is relatively small, about 1 mm to 3 mm, pearl or flesh color, smooth surface, dome-shaped protrusions, around the edge of the glans and the coronal sulcus around the arrangement, often one or several rows. According to statistics, among all men, people with pearly papules account for 8% to 48%, and the probability of uncircumcised men having pearly papules is much higher than that of circumcised men.

The occurrence of pearly papules has nothing to do with HPV infection, and its cause is still unclear. It is generally believed to be a benign hyperplasia or evolutionary remnant of the human body (penile spines, refer to the cat's penis, which looks like a mace). It is not an infectious disease and even has physiological functions. Therefore, pearly papules are not a disease, let alone an infectious disease.

Of course, if you think that this thing affects your appearance (well, everyone has their own preferences, and it's hard to say about aesthetics), you can consider removing it. You can refer to the treatment of warts. Of course, doctors will not recommend doing this because they are very busy.

Figure: Color, shape and arrangement of pearly papules (Source: Wikipedia)

Pearly papules similar to vestibular papillomatosis may also occur on the female body, mainly in the vestibular epithelium or labia minora. These tiny pink protrusions are called "villous labia minora". The papilloma-like structures of the villous labia minora are also painless, non-itchy and non-contagious, but some women report discomfort such as itching and tingling, which may be caused by infection.

Sebaceous gland ectopic disease

Fordyce spots are caused by physiological variations in the development of sebaceous glands and hyperplasia of the sebaceous glands of the lips, oral cavity or external genital mucosa. It is a benign lesion that is painless, non-itchy, non-infectious and does not require treatment.

Sebaceous gland ectopic disease is actually the abnormal enlargement of sebaceous glands. These sebaceous glands exist at birth, but until puberty, they enlarge under the stimulation of gonadal and adrenal androgens and become visible white protrusions. Sebaceous gland ectopic disease is very common, with an adult prevalence of 70% to 80%, and a male to female ratio of about 2:1. In addition to being related to congenital factors and endocrine, sebaceous gland ectopic disease is also related to local irritation or trauma. Studies have reported that high blood lipids may promote the occurrence of sebaceous gland ectopic disease.

Figure: Sebaceous gland ectopic disease

Ectopic sebaceous glands appear as flat papules the size of millet grains without obvious protrusions. They are mostly light yellow, clustered or scattered, with a smooth surface. They can be seen more clearly when the skin is stretched tight, and feel like fine gravel when touched. They mainly occur on the red part of the lips, especially the upper lip, and the inner side of the lips. They can also occur in the external genitalia. In men, they mainly appear on the penis shaft, foreskin and frenulum, and in women, they mainly appear on the labia majora and minora and perineum.

Like pseudocondyloma, sebaceous gland ectopic usually has no symptoms and does not cause any discomfort, so no treatment is needed. Because any treatment is harmful and may cause secondary bacterial infection or scarring. If you want to remove it, refer to the treatment of warts, you can use electrocautery, liquid nitrogen freezing and carbon dioxide laser treatment.

Secretions

The "famous scholar" Jia Baoyu once said, "Girls are made of water, and men are made of mud." This sentence is often used by biology teachers to make fun of it: because men have relatively high muscle content and relatively low fat content, and muscle contains more water than fat, the average water content of men is 60%, and the average water content of women is 55%.

But in fact, there is something right about what Jia Baoyu said.

Leukorrhea is a sticky white discharge that is naturally secreted from the female vagina. This is normal. However, when there is an infection, tumor, or hormone level change, the color, texture, and amount of leukorrhea may also change. It is recommended that female friends pay attention to these signals. If there is a change in leukorrhea, consider reproductive health issues instead of sexually transmitted diseases first, and don't be embarrassed to see a doctor.

Smegma is mainly composed of dead cells, sebum and water, and usually accumulates in the foreskin and glans, uh, white smelly mud. It is a bit unfair to call smegma smelly mud. It is not useless smegma like dandruff, but a benign normal secretion that has moisturizing and lubricating effects, and contains active substances such as squalene (do you know how much skin care products containing squalene cost) and lysozyme.

Smegma will appear in large quantities at the "age of need". Children almost do not produce smegma. Smegma begins to be produced from puberty to sexual maturity. The production will decrease after middle age and almost stop in old age. However, old smegma that has been there for too long may irritate the penis and cause inflammation. Well, although Mother Nature has prepared this thing for us, we don't have to use it, so just wash it off.

By the way, women also have smegma, which is located in the clitoris, labia minora, etc., and is composed of secretory glands and desquamated epithelium, which are the same.

"Cervical erosion"

The so-called "cervical erosion" refers to the sign of local redness in the cervical area, but in fact this "redness" is just the transformation of the stratified squamous epithelium into a single layer of columnar epithelium, which is redder than the surrounding area. It is a normal physiological phenomenon. Before 2008, the unified textbook "Obstetrics and Gynecology" for medical students in my country regarded "cervical erosion" as a standard disease symptom. In the new edition of "Obstetrics and Gynecology" in 2008, the name of "cervical erosion" was clearly cancelled and replaced by the physiological phenomenon of "cervical columnar epithelium ectopia".

In the past few years, many gynecologists and medical communication organizations have made great efforts to save millions of women from the Putian system's "specialized treatment of cervical erosion". There are many detailed popular science materials about cervical erosion, which you can find by yourself, so this article will not go into details.

Treating health concerns or illnesses appropriately

Have you learned some strange knowledge after reading this? If you encounter these confusions, you don’t need to ask your friends to consult others. Maybe some slow-witted students have never noticed these small changes in their bodies. Learn more about health knowledge and take good care of your body.

In ancient China, there was a kind of punishment called "ink punishment", which was to tattoo words or patterns on the face or forehead of the prisoner, and then cover it with ink to form an insulting tattoo. Ink punishment is the lightest of the five punishments of slavery, but it is not only a specific punishment of carving on the skin, but also a kind of humiliating punishment that makes the prisoner suffer shame and distinguish him from ordinary people. In ancient Western countries, there was also a custom of making cuts or burns on the skin of slaves or traitors to mark them, which was called Stigma.

Image: Similar to the scarlet letter, which was cursed by thousands of people. (Still from the 1995 movie "The Scarlet Letter")

The pain of cutting the skin is easy to relieve, but the shame is hard to eliminate, which can be described as "not very harmful, but very insulting." Diseases that damage the skin also have similar effects to tattooing, the most typical of which is leprosy.

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by infection with Mycobacterium leprae, which can cause progressive and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and ears. Leprosy causes severe facial or skin damage, which inspires people's fear and disgust, and makes people strongly reject leprosy patients, and even think that "leprosy is a punishment from heaven for morally corrupt people." The isolation and centralized treatment of leprosy patients further worsened their experience. For these patients, the shame caused by social stigmatization may be the source of greater pain than the disease itself.

Social stigma refers to the process of separating certain people from other members of a group based on their social characteristics, and of excluding and discriminating against them. Stigma also includes self-stigma caused by one's own negative attributes. Health-related stigma mainly includes physical disabilities, mental illnesses, and sexually transmitted diseases, and this stigma may even continue after the body has recovered.

Figure: A 24-year-old leprosy patient (Source: Wikipedia)

Today, tattooing has disappeared, "scars are a man's medal", "tattoos seem cool", and leprosy has become a distant legend, but the invisible tattooing has always existed. Many people who have contracted sexually transmitted diseases or suspect that they have sexually transmitted diseases have not been able to go to regular hospitals for diagnosis and treatment due to shame, delaying the disease, or living in the shadow for a long time, reducing their sense of dignity, and developing self-loathing and even self-isolation.

Our series of articles on sexually transmitted diseases repeatedly emphasize that "our enemy is the disease, not the patient." An open and positive attitude to solve problems is conducive to treating the disease. If you are not sick, take a step forward. If you are sick, treat the disease. Even ants are greedy for life, so life has its own dignity.