VERY ANXIOUS - GONORRHOEA?

[LSYORK]

I recently had protected oral and protected vaginal sex with a prostitute. The latter lasted only about 10 seconds. A condom was on throughout, and was placed on prior to any contact whatsoever, and removed post-ejaculation. at one point I touched the prostitute's outer labia with my fingers for around 1 second.

I am wracked with guilt as I have a girlfriend who I love and have betrayed her.

Around 6 days after this I was squeezing my penis and I noticed a very tiny amount of white / clear sticky substance that I was able to push out of my urethra. When I touched it with my fingers it formed 'strings' between them. I can do this about once per day, at other times I cannot produce this material. I have no other symptoms of Gonococcal infection.

I have ordered and performed a home chlamydia test which was negative. I also attended a GUM clinic and had the gonorrhoea test performed - I await the results tomorrow. I am convinced that I have gonorrhoea, and that I must have transferred the bacteria onto my penis via my fingers, perhaps from the outside of the condom when I removed it? I cannot sleep, and when I eat I vomit it back up again within 5 minutes because I am so nervous and ashamed.

What is the likelihood that this has happened? In january last year I had a similar problem which was non-sexually transmitted (i.e. discharge from penis - it was NSU (non-chlamydia)), and my girlfriend and I have lots of unprotected sex, including when she suffers from bouts of cystitis.

The recency of my (first and only) sexual encounter with a prostitute has made me believe almost without a doubt that I have this disease, and that I am going to lose the woman I love and want to marry because of a stupid drunken incident. I am scared, can someone please help?

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to the Forum.  I would be most surprised if you had gonorrhea.  Protected sex is safe sex and the risk of acquiring gonorrhea through the exposures you describe is close to zero.  here are the reasons for my comments:

1.   Most commercial sex workers do not have STDs.
2.  Even if  your partner did, most UNROTECTED exposures do not lead to transmission.
3.  Your exposure was condom protected, making your risk close to zero.
4.  STDs are very rarely transmitted on a person's hands.
5.  The discharge you describe does not sound like gonorrhea at all.

So, what did you see.  All men have small amounts of normal urethral secretions which vary in amount from person to person and can be seen if a person squeezed hard enough.  The mucoid, "sticky" nature of what you saw is entirely consistent with normal male secretions.  

I hope my comments help.  I am confident that your tests at the GUM Clinic tomorrow will be negative.  EWH

[Edward W Hook, MD]

HPV is  avast and complicated field.  I will provide a single answer but if you want to get into HPV (I suggest you do not) you should ask another question.  The risk of getting HPV from any single protected encounter is low.  On the other hand, as a sexually active adult, you proably already have or have had HPV.  For better or worse, at present HPV is a "fact of life" and most people have it or will have it at some point in the future.  Despite this fact, only a tiny minority of persons with HPV get the consequences of infection (primarily women and primarily cancer and pre-cancerous lesions).  HPV is the most commonly acquired STD and is well controlled by the immune system in the vast majority of peole who become infected.  Over 85% of sexually active women will have HPV infection at some time in their lives.  The figure for men is less well studied but similar.  I really would not worry.  EWH

[LSYORK]

Dear Sir,

I apologise for bringing this matter up again, and will gladly pay the additional $20 to ask one further question on this subject, if you feel necessary?

Essentially, my further query is, in regard to the above level of contact, how likely am I to have contracted HPV? The (non-protected) level of contact was very low, and I am anything but 'hair-free' down there (if this has any bearing at all).

Again, i am worrying like mad, and this whole issue is affecting my day-to-day life, i hope you can help.

[LSYORK]

The results were negative, thankyou for easing my mind and for the accurate comments

LS

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Either spelling of gonorrhea is fine. EWH

[LSYORK]

Dear Sir,

Thankyou for your response, I will be aided in sleeping tonight, and will report back to you the results.

I apologise for the improper introduction and sign-off on my previous post, I had copied and pasted it from the community forum.

All the best,

LS

ps. I am british - am I spelling gonorrhoea / gonorrhea incorrectly?