Hand/genital contact

[Sigurd]

Dear doctors,

I was recently in a situation that included "fondling" with the genitals of an unknown woman. There were some vaginal secretions on my hand, and I may have touched my genitals not long time after touching hers. I retreated from the situation and no other sexual contact took place. Worried after coming home, I started treatment with some doxyline which was left over after treatment of a mycoplasma chest infection a year ago. I started treatment with 200 mg doxyline just 2-3 hours after the possible exposure and kept on with this for a few days.

I have the following questions for you: How unlikely is transmission of chlamydia in such a setting? And - wouldn´t the rapid start-up with doxyline in practice immediately abort the establishment of infection even if I had been so unlucky that some bacteria were transmitted, and even if I did not go complete a whole doxyline "cure" (7 days)?

I am also asking because my girlfriend just reported some unusual (but not unheard of) bleeding, and I feel worried that I mayt have transmitted something to her.

Thanks in advance, Sigurd

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the forum.  But you could have saved the posting fee if you had heeded the advice to look for similar questions, as discussed in the prominent Disclaimer message.  Use the search link and enter "fingering" or "hand-genital" to see a giant number of discussions.  The bottom line is that fingering and hand-genital contact carry no risk for chamydia or any bacterial and you should not be taking antibiotics after this sort of event.  There is a theoretical risk for HPV, but it's uncommon.

Let's not have any follow-up "yes but" or "what if" questions.  Read all the other threads instead.  I won't have any further comments.

HHH, MD