Life Uncut - STIs, living with herpes, stigma and your sexual health questions answered

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

Ok Lifers, let's cut to the chase. Ya'll have either had an STI, dated someone with an STI or know someone that has/had an STI.... statistics say this is true! So we thought it was time to get a professional in to talk truths, smash stigmas and educate us all that little bit more. So Dr Hannah Kelly is in the house to answer all your questions! And you had a lot of them!Dr Hannah is a medical doctor working in a general practice, who has spent the last few years working in sexual health, women’s health and sexual assault services. She is also the host of the podcast “Knee Deep - sexual and reproductive health with Dr Hannah.” The woman knows her stuff.But before that, we spoke to one of our own community members about her experience with the herpes simplex virus. Did you know 1 in 8 people have tested positive to the herpes virus?She speaks very openly about her diagnosis and how it has affected her the last 10 years, how to tell partners and how they have dealt with it and well, you may just be surprised. We can't thank her enough for sharing her story to help break down the stigma attached and to help others that may be affected in some way.If you know someone that may benefit from this episode please don't be shy!And don't forget to tell you mum, tell your dad, tell your dog and tell your friends and share the love, because, well, we love love xoh and PS WE HIT 10 MILLION woop woop! Thank you to every one of you scallywags that have come on the journey, left reviews and told your friends. We love you all xxxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Brittany. And it's been a big week, guys. Oh, hasn't it ever? We've got a new bachelorette. Zac Efron is still single, and the Mice are taking over Australia. We also hit 10 million downloads.

You guys might have seen, if you follow us on the gram, if you don't, where you at. But if you follow us, we did a little parody video to celebrate hitting 10 million, and we had so much fun doing it. But we do want to just say we are just so beyond chuffed. We are so beyond belief that there are that many of you crazy, crazy people that tune in to listen to us every single week because if it wasn't for you, as much as Laura and I love to do this, we wouldn't be here. So we just

want to say thank you so much. You've laughed with us, you've cried with us, you've made us cry, you've made us laugh, all of the above. I feel like this is a reciprocal therapy session. We get as much from this as you guys do. So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. And you would also think that after 10 million downloads, some things might have changed. Like, you know, like maybe we'd have a studio. Maybe I don't have to move your underwear to record and sit on my But I'm sitting across from Britt right now and we still have socks on our microphones. I don't know why we don't fix that. You know what it is now?

I think it's just like not a laziness, but it's not a priority because the socks work. You know what? It's good just to stay close to your roots and stay close to your base and also stay close to your bed. We're also still sitting next to my bed, sitting next to my unwashed clothes and nothing has changed. Stay humble. Except there's a lot of you that listen now.

But as Britt said, we also got to make this very satirical video for our 10 million downloads and we got to go on a very bougie boat and I was very scared about breaking things. Literally the couch was more expensive than my entire apartment. It was a really, really beautiful yacht. We chartered it through Ahoy Club, which if you guys have seen the video, you'll know how beautiful this boat is. They do charter it for people as well. Thank you so much to them for taking us out for the day. Okay, well with that out of the way guys, I do want to bring out one thing that I read in the news this week and that is that the Port Adelaide Football Club has themselves a new guernsey now i have what's again yeah i have a few questions one is why is it not just

called a jersey i learned a few things this week it's that when you play afl you wear a guernsey also the english language it's very confusing there are multiple weird words for everything and i'm probably saying it wrong so if you're really into like afl and i'm sorry but i'm probably saying it wrong but anyway the article was about they had basically done a competition with school students to try and find an artwork that they would use to display on their new football Guernsey and this one student now the article that I read wouldn't go into details about who she was or who he was it's a 17 year old who submitted this very beautiful intricate indigenous artwork as their submission for this print that was going to end up on the Guernsey

it was chosen and then it turns out turns out that this student didn't actually make the print at all an indigenous artist named Elle Campbell has actually come out on Instagram and she said not only is the artwork extremely similar to something that she's created it is her identical artwork it is mine it is hers this is mine copy carbon and paste she has been called out so sensationally for plagiarizing this artwork and trying to like fob it off as her own in this competition i feel like this poor 17 year old girl and i say poor because i don't feel like she would have had any intention i don't think she would have thought she was going to win it was probably an assignment that everyone had she was like fuck it i don't want to do it so here

look i made this artwork sure she for sure would have gone on the internet and been like i have been out with my boyfriend all night i don't have anything to submit tomorrow i will just take this picture probably not even thinking about it and i mean i'm giving her the benefit of the doubt like i said i'm not saying what she did is right it is very very wrong but i feel like we've all been to that place where we're like if i haven't got anything to hand in at school i'll hand in this she probably didn't expect to win and it has blown up and now she's like oh my god all of australia has called me out could you imagine winning that and then being like subtract subtract like what do you do do you sit there and go oh this is very yeah I think you say what I just said then I think

you own it and you're like I am so sorry I didn't do my assignment for the week I didn't know it was going to go anywhere I was just trying to get a pass mark kind of thing well basically that's not what happened it has been printed it wasn't until the press release came out with these beautiful artwork that was printed on the Port Adelaide football club's jerseys that that is when the artist the original artist actually saw it and came out and sort of claimed what was hers but I read this today and it made me laugh because it made me think of something that I did in my stupid youth. Brittany did you ever cheat on like a test or like you know maybe your HSC or your ATAR for those of you who are younger? Did I ever cheat? You know what I was such a

goody-goody. No there was one time I cheated but you tell me yours first because obviously you have done something. No, no, no, no. I want to hear yours first because I want to be absolved of my sins. No, mine is the most ridiculous. Okay. I'll tell you. You guys are going to think this is ridiculous. The only time I've ever really cheated at school was I was only in year six. So I was like 12 years old. I was 12 years old. It was a spelling test just in the class. And I didn't know how to spell a word. So I glanced over to the girl next to me because she was like a bit of a smarty pants. And I was like, there's no way she's going to get this wrong. And I was a pretty good spell at everything else but this was a really tricky word the word was people

I couldn't spell people so I looked over to the girl next to me and she wrote p-e-o-p-p-l-e she wrote double p so I wrote p-e-o-p-p-l-e and I was people anyway I got all my other spelling right we had to go around and read out how to spell the word and I will never forget them saying P-E-O-P-L-E and I put my hand up and I was like yeah I don't think that's correct I was like I think it's double P because this girl was she never got anything wrong anyway she fucked up she ruined my like 100% success rate and I had to end up having a little argument with the teacher and he was like Brittany I'm the teacher I know how to spell people you're wrong it's one P so not only did you cheat you tried to school the teacher at the same time yeah I was 12

and I spelled people with two P's and I've never forgotten it I've never ever forgotten it but that was I honestly cannot think of another time I cheated but speaking of hard words there's still plenty of words that as an adult I have no fucking idea how to spell every time I have to spell restaurant I'm like restaurant that's the one that gets you restaurant or on and jewelry as a jewelry designer no I'm not even I'm not even joking as a jewelry designer this was like my one wild anxiety inducing moment where I was like how the fuck do you say the word jewelry and how do spell it like i couldn't say it properly i was like do you say jewelry or do you say jewelry all right you know what i reckon the hardest one is champagne yacht yacht is so difficult and it

shouldn't be there's not that many letters of the word as you're cheating okay so this is definitely going to end up in daily mail and i'm not even ashamed about it anymore and if you're doing your atar or hsc or whatever the hell it's called these days i'm not going to encourage you to do Laura, do not encourage anyone to cheat. We do not condone cheating. No, we absolutely don't condone cheating. Look, I'm a 35-year-old woman now. I don't cheat in anything in my life anymore.

I've learnt my lessons. I was not particularly academic when it came to maths. And I had tried, look, I had tried so hard for my HSC. So fucking hard. I had studied. I had, like, memorised essays. But when it came to maths, I just couldn't remember the formulas. so I don't know what it's like now in school or like how the tests go now but basically when I

was doing my HSC for maths you had to know all of the formulas and you had to know those off by heart in order to do whatever the divisions were I'll never forget I reckon kids these days have it easy you had to memorize so much we had no computer like I mean fuck that's like how old are we we had no tv and we had a radio and black and white I had to walk through the snow to get to that exam back in my day no so but we didn't and when we sat our exams and stuff it was all written there was no ipads laptops there was no there was dial-up internet like come on it was it was hard we used to chalkboards so I could not for the life of me remember these formulas and what I did was I we could the only thing we could bring into the exams with us was a couple of pieces of paper

white blank paper and two pens that was it you know what the young kids these days are going be like what are they talking about literally four pieces of paper and two pens so what I did was I got my four pieces of blank white paper and I got one piece and I put it underneath another right I scored really hard all of the different equations that I needed to remember and I scored them into the paper so it was indented into the paper so it was indented so then I took it I took the top sheet out and I left that and then I walked in and I had like all my pages and they they checked and I was like yep here it is but I had all of my different formulas I needed scored into the paper you little turd and of course you nailed it you cheated were you surprised this is

the first time I've ever told that story I cheated on my HSC exam guys I'm really sorry I love that you're like hey we just hit 10 million that's how many of you are listening so now is when I'm going to out myself as a cheat in my HSC okay but wait for this so there was this actually ended up making the paper in the Mercury. I'm from Wollongong guys. The local paper is called the Mercury. So Mercury Times. There was a girl in my year. I went to a all girls, very Catholic, well-behaved school called St. Mary's. So you were the odd one out. Yeah. It was the devil child. So there was a girl in my year who not only did she cheat, but she stashed her cheat notes. So basically you could go to the toilet as many times as you wanted during your exam and the exams would go for a

couple of hours. And this one girl kept on getting up and going to the toilet, getting up and going to the toilet getting up and going to the toilet so of course eventually the teachers were like what the hell's going on like this girl's been to the toilet seven times she had stashed her cheat notes in the sanitary bin in the toilet that's wrong on so many levels it's like guys it's okay university you know you can go as a mature age student you don't need that shit that bad i feel like teachers are onto that these days i feel like teachers would look at that right if there's one toilet surely they know that people are going to try and cheat you know what that reminds me of when i was on my when i was on the bachelor and i was the last person basically in

the mansion well i was that was the last person in the mansion i wrote a note to the next lot of people that i knew were going to come in so in terms of like all the boys that were about to come in and film bachelorette i wrote them a note because i was in this mansion alone with a minder that was who knows where they were and i was like oh my god i need to warn people so i wrote a note and it was warning it was like run now trust no one it was like all these I know I was like fucking everyone's out to get you people will pretend to be your friend they're not all these points and then I hid it under in one of the bunk beds because we're in bunk beds I was on the bottom bunk and I put it under one of the slats and what I did was just leave the tiniest bit of

the paper out so that if the next guy that was laying on there was looking up there's no way he wouldn't see it and pull it out and I thought this was brilliant I was like this is my cheat cheat to you guys on I think I called it a cheat sheet I was like on how to get through what to do and what not to do and I was like praying to god I was like I hope someone gets this just because it'd be a cool story you need to like put a call out to all the guys who are in the next season of bachelor and find out if they found that I remember I can't remember who it was I was speaking to but I remember speaking to someone from that season and I was like did any of the boys say that they found a note and no one came forward and said it but if there's any way that anyone listening can

get this out to all the boys I want to know if anyone actually did find it because oh actually do you know what would that have been Tim's season yeah so that would have been Tim and well I mean we all know remember Tim the infamous Tim that would have been Tim and Kieran's season so I ended out well yeah so I mean obviously I had some sort of connection with them but I can't remember anyone finding it and no one ran except Kieran but we all know how that worked out anyway that just reminded me of that random story but first accidentally unfiltered you want to go first. We love this part. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you came. The Accidentally Unfiltered is where we read out your most embarrassing stories and we all laugh

together like the beautiful family that we are. If you follow the Life Uncut Facebook page, this is going to be one where you're going to absolutely understand and love it. And if you don't follow our Facebook page, well, it's actually the group, please jump on board and get involved. And here it is. Okay. After a couple of wines, I went to post on the Life Uncut Facebook page about how low my sex drive is laura is this written by you maybe and i was asking everyone in the community about how i can improve my sex drive so after putting my phone down for at least 25 minutes i noticed some haha reactions to my post and i thought that's a bit fucking harsh anyway my phone then starts ringing and it's my mother asking if i'm okay because she's seen my

facebook status and wants to know why i felt the need to share my sex drive with the entire fucking family what in the entire fucking world not just a family but your facebook status i love but you know what i love most i love that you like okay to this person who wrote this in i love that you felt so comfortable to share it with 40 000 people who are in our facebook community but you can't share that shit with your friends all right brick give me your accidentally unfiltered okay mine's pretty cute hubby and i have this silly joke where if he has a birthday or anniversary I'll ask him what he wants and he will always say well you could let me put it in your bum question mark that's literally what Matt says I also wrote this one in no it sounds a little

strange but it's honestly just a joke that's been going on for close to eight years now I don't really know how it started but whatever we now have two kids and we've organized for my in-laws to take them for the weekend so that we can have a little dirty weekend away my youngest is only one so I was messaging my mother-in-law some details and just checking in how he's going at the same time my hubby was texting me and saying I can't wait to have you to myself all weekend I thought I had clicked onto his message to reply and I literally typed yeah maybe you can put it in my bum this time haha and then I instantly realized I had said it to his mom humiliating r.i.p me I love that you just told your mother-in-law you're gonna have butt sex

with her son hey anal sex that's great oh could you imagine but you know what i reckon there's so many women who are listening to this who are like yeah me and my partner had the exact same joke why is it that this is just like men's biggest fantasy why i don't get it i think they think it's tighter do you think it's just porn do you think it's like porn because i think porn sets like unrealistic standards for what sex is as a whole but there's a lot of women out there who like anal sex as well oh absolutely but it's like it's like men's special treat only on birthdays and christmas twice a year before we get too ahead of ourselves i want to just give you guys a quick rundown on what today's episode is about and we have dr hannah on today's episode

who is going to be answering all of your questions around sexual health now dr hannah is a general practitioner but she specializes in sexual health and so we put out a call out on our instagram kind of like an extended ask uncut in regards to what questions you have when it comes to sex sexual health sexual wellness and I was so surprised that literally 90% of those messages that came in and we received hundreds guys hundreds and hundreds of messages but so many of them were in relation to STIs and it got Britt and I really talking about this and thinking about how we could put this episode together in a way that covered this in the most complete and vulnerable and honest way possible. And so we have Dr. Hannah on the episode. She's going to

be answering all the questions that were asked, but we also reached out to you for a really authentic story for somebody who has been diagnosed with herpes simplex virus, because it became so clear to Brit and I that there is so much stigma. There is so much fear and misinformation surrounding STIs. And we really wanted to be able to use this episode to better kind of debunk that and start to work towards de-stigmatizing something that is so incredibly common yet people who have contracted something like herpes have so much shame and so much guilt around I will put my hand up straight away I was so into this episode like not even being biased because I'm the host I fucking love our episodes guys but I was like as I was talking to both the

listener that we speak to and Dr Hannah I felt like I was on the edge of my seat I was hanging on to every word because I I will be very honest and put my hand up and say I was a little bit naive I was uneducated on a lot of this I knew the base level I knew what we were taught when we were younger and then I guess I just walked away and went through life without overly thinking about it because I have never had to suffer with it so I can't live it from a personal experience so I guess it's one of those things that's for me was a bit out of sight out of mind so as I was speaking to Dr Hannah and us as I was speaking to our lovely lovely listener I was just learning so much and I will 100% say wow we don't as a community and as a society we don't speak about

this enough because I'm a 33 old woman I'm an educated woman I've worked in the medical industry for a long time and there was still a lot that I was learning about so I think the fact that I got something from this I know all of you will whether you are suffering from it yourself or maybe you have a friend that is suffering from it there is going to be something for everyone that they can take away in this and one of the really important things about this is that one in eight people like we did our research guys, one in eight people suffer from genital herpes and about 16% of all Australians have reported having an STI. Now these stats are also hugely under-reported because of the shame that's attached to being able to front up and say, put your hand up and say, yeah,

I have an STI. And the thing is with things like with genital herpes or with HPV, they are incurable and they are something that you're going to have for the rest of your life, but they're also not life-threatening. It doesn't necessarily need to be a big deal. And I think we treat STIs as though your life will be over if you contract one. And as you said, Britt, it's something that's out of sight, out of mind, but it's only out of sight, out of mind until either you contract something yourself or until you're in a situation where either a friend is going through it or maybe a new partner who you are really, really into sits you down one day to have a vulnerable conversation about the fact that they have herpes. One in eight people having

genital herpes means that it is very, very, very fucking likely that you will experience this. So I 100% think that there is something in this episode for everyone. And we really do need to have these conversations more openly on a public platform to be able to help people who are struggling in silence and people who do feel that there is so much shame attached to this. It really doesn't need to define you and it really doesn't need to be the be all and end all. And if you are somebody who is struggling with the diagnosis of having an STI, it doesn't make you unlovable. It doesn't make you less than, and it certainly doesn't make you dirty or any of the other things that we kind of have a social attachment to because of what we've been taught

or how little information there is around. And just in case you do want to have a look at where we got those statistics from, we'll have a read about it. They were from the Family Planning New South Wales Reproductive and Sexual Health site. And that is where we got the one in eight have herpes. And when we, you will hear in the interview, but when we said to our listener, you know, one in eight people do have it. She made a really, really great point. She said, every partner that I have openly told that I have herpes have said, oh, that's cool. I also know someone with it. All the men have been like, I have a friend with it. And all of a sudden people are starting to realize when we're open about it, people are like, wow, this is actually not as rare

and shameful as I've been led to believe by society. So look, we are both very passionate about this episode. We really, really feel like it's about time we put this on the platform that we have and we get people talking about it. Totally. And if you know somebody who is struggling with or is going through a diagnosis of having an STI, share this with them. You know, the more that we talk about this stuff, the more that we work to de-stigmatizing it, the more that we work towards normalizing it. And when I say normalizing it, like, yes, of course, Britain, I advocate for using reasonable amounts of protection and being sensible and taking care of yourself. All of that is stuff that we truly believe in. But at the same time, you can use every precaution under the sun.

you can wear condoms you can try and abstain but if you're sexually active there is a chance that you're going to catch an STI and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have done anything wrong and I think that that's something that's so important to say before we fully start unpacking this we're so grateful to the hundreds of people who wrote to us and who were willing to share their story and the person who you're going to hear from now is one of our amazing listeners to the day one listener she was a day one listener she has been diagnosed with herpes simplex virus and she's been living with this for the last 10 years and she shares her story really openly and really vulnerably. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us today. We put the call out because

we really wanted to speak to somebody that did test positive for the herpes virus, that has been living with it and that did have the first-hand experience. We had so many people reach out so to every single one of you that did reach out we can't thank you enough but thank you for coming on and joining us today. Oh I'm so happy to be here. Let's start from the start. When did you find out you had contracted herpes? What was that situation like in terms of was it a one-night stand? Were you dating somebody? Did you know the person that you contracted it from had it? So sort of let's start back there. So I was 16 and a half when I first got told I had it. I'd been with my partner for six months. We're in a relationship and he was my first sexual partner. So we'd

obviously done the deed and I'd all of a sudden had these symptoms downstairs and I thought something's not right. And being that I was nearly 17, I went straight to my mum and she didn't have much knowledge on that topic either. So we went straight to emergency because I was in absolute agony. My boyfriend at the time, he was there for me. He didn't say anything to me. It was sort of like, oh, you were okay. And that was it. We went to emergency and I sat in with my mom and my mom didn't know I was sexually active. So that was really fun. It's always a fun moment, isn't it? Yeah. So we're sitting in the emergency room. I had no idea that it was from sex and the doctor

was listing off everything and I actually rang my mum before this before this chat just to sort of step back in time and she said to me oh she froze and she thought how on earth you know did you get this because she had no knowledge it was a very gut-wrenching time because the doctor said to me if you were to fall pregnant you are to tell your doctor that you have this and that's when mum's heart sort of sunk she went oh my god this is really serious so that sort of didn't help either because I guess mum didn't have any knowledge and I didn't really have anyone to turn to she was there for me obviously but uh yeah it was it was a very new thing to us and I was prescribed when I went home and my boyfriend didn't say anything to me all the doctor said too

was he needs to go and get checked and I told him to go get checked and he never said anything and that was yeah that was really tough but I should also add I was from a country town and that was so I'm 26 now and that was obviously nearly 10 years ago it was never said it was never actually said to me that you have an STD genital herpes it was just tiptoed around we sort of just let it let the dust settle and we sort of moved on but I obviously knew that it was wrong and I knew to not be sexually active when I had it but the fact that my part my boyfriend at the time and we were together for two years after that so the fact that he never said anything to me that's really sort of annoys me to this day still when you said you knew that it was wrong what did you

mean by that I suffer from cold sores on my lips and on my face and when I noticed that it was happening to me downstairs I thought well obviously this is contagious this isn't right so I sort of knew myself that that's wrong so whenever I was sexually active and I did have a flare-up I knew not to not to do it it wasn't until last year that I moved towns and I'd gone to a new doctor she said to me how do you handle your genital herpes and I sort of went puzzled I was I went what are you talking about and she told me again and I said my doctor never told me 10 years ago when like I lived in my old hometown what it actually was they always tiptoed around it and that just that makes me so mad because again there's a stigma behind it not even male doctors

or female doctors they don't want to actually say it to you like that really annoyed me so yeah I've got goosebumps at that that's really mind-boggling to me at how 10 years ago is not a long time ago and I can't understand so when you went to the doctor for the first time did they say anything to you they obviously didn't say you have herpes did they say anything to you like what that means in terms of don't be sexually active or did you just have to go and figure this out on your own I remember having to go figure it out on my own I remember I guess I was 17 I was still at school I was still a teenager I guess I I sort of just put it to the back of my mind I had a boyfriend at the time it passed and then I noticed it came back when I was stressed so every time it

would come back and I was still with the same partner I would go back to the doctors and they would have a look at the area and I'd be sent home and I always wondered and I said what is it what is it actually called because to me it's just cold sores and it was a younger girl at the time she looked like she was like a doctor that had just started I would say because again it was a small country town they had people coming in all the time in and out with doctors so she just tiptoed around it and obviously I had common sense plus I didn't want to it was extremely painful so I didn't want to be sexually active so yeah there was so much stigma and yeah that's I guess why I'm so passionate about it now it just adds to it so much when like you know people are afraid of

having these conversations with their friends and telling their friends sort of what they're going through but let alone sitting down with a doctor and having a doctor not feel comfortable or confident enough to be able to say to someone this is what you're dealing with in a very matter effect way because I think the more that we tiptoe around a subject the more fear we create around it the more that we're like oh I wouldn't want to be you kind of thing and instead of it being treated in the same way that we would talk about the cold or we would talk about cold sores on your face and even Britt and I were having these conversations and I was like it's so crazy to me that we treat people who have cold sores in one way we treat cold sores on your face in such a different way

to how we treat what is essentially cold sores on your vagina or on your penis and like there is such a fear that's surrounding that. Obviously when someone has a cold sore that's active on their face we avoid kissing them because you know you take the precautions that are reasonable but when someone has been diagnosed with herpes the fear isn't just there when they have an outbreak the fear is there all the time. We kind of think oh I don't want to have sex with them because I'm going to catch it at any time and I know that there are always risks involved but there is so much stigma that is attached to this subject. Now I kind of feel like you've almost dealt with a diagnosis twice going through being told you know okay this is how you're gonna have

to manage this 10 years ago and then only a year ago actually having a label for it or what you were suffering from what was it like when somebody actually said you have genital herpes well I just froze I guess I looked like I would have seen a ghost and I went to a new doctor and it wasn't actually for that it was for something else and it was on my file and she was an older doctor and she is so thorough and good at her job and she gave me some prescriptions to have on hand in case a flare-up ever happened no doctor has ever done that for me in the past so I guess I felt sick I'd been living with something I knew it was something but I didn't I didn't have a label for it and I never investigated it more because it then came once a year and it was manageable.

I mean it's very lucky that you were just an intelligent woman that can take control of this yourself but what angers me the most is that you know it's one thing for people to want to scoot around it because they don't feel comfortable as ridiculous that is but that doctor failed you completely she has a duty of care and she 100 failed you in that sense so I'm just sorry that that even happened you shouldn't have gone through 10 years of this and I guess like even just to jump in there but I guess the thing with the doctor is there is an assumption like there's an assumption that people know and understand what all of this is like there's an assumption that people know about HPV and that it can you know potentially cause cervical cancer there's

an assumption that people know that HPV is linked to genital warts there's an assumption that people know that if herpes presents what that looks like what that feels like but without the education without the understanding how the fuck is someone supposed to know you know and that's the problem we're not talking about it and so there are lots of people who maybe they have been diagnosed and they're not able to manage it in the absolute best way possible because they haven't been given the resources that they deserve access to. As somebody that suffers from genital herpes and cold sores because I don't know if they necessarily go hand in hand that could be ignorance for me I don't know if everybody that gets genital herpes also gets cold sores but what is I guess the similarities

or the differences in that sense in terms of the way it looks or how big they are or the pain like is one more painful and manageable than the other like how can you compare the two? I actually get cold sores in my nose as well they are everywhere so when I'm really stressed I can feel it obviously coming up on my lip and it's mainly I sometimes get a cluster I'll get maybe three or four in one corner of my lip or on the top and it's like a bruise it just feels like my underneath my skin is bruised and it's the same feels like on my vagina as well so it basically becomes really itchy it becomes I guess what like really swollen really swollen really itchy the same thing happens the clusters happen it's like a cluster of cold sores basically and now it can happen on one side

of my vagina meaning like not where the hair grows but more of the inside yeah so obviously the the nerves are all connected to that too which goes down my leg so I actually had a flare up last month and I noticed my leg I thought oh my gosh my nerves in my leg are so sensitive and I sort of I went to the bathroom and I went oh okay that's why and I looked at my vagina and sure enough it had flared up and that was because of stress I was very stressed with work on my face it's more like one or two and then when I say I get it in my nose it can happen inside of my there that sounds really bad but they're the best ones because no one can see them they're in my nose when you found out and you had a label for it and you sort of compartmentalizing okay this is what

I'm dealing with now how did you have that conversation with your partner and I think that that was one of the biggest questions that we received in regards to dealing with an STI and living with an STI is how do you go on to tell your next sexual partner hey this is this is what's happening you know how do you feel about that it was really hard being in a small town because everyone knows everyone and the next partners I came to be with after that I had to be really mindful it was difficult to tell him because I thought can I trust you enough to keep this and not tell any of your friends and then your friends tell their friends and then it all gets a gosh she's got this because I didn't want anyone to know thankfully he did keep my secret

and he didn't say anything he was very understanding when I told him I haven't had a bad experience telling my next partners thankfully they've been very open-minded and understanding and nine times out of ten they have got a best mate that has it as well so they've got a guy friend that does have it and and they're keeping that secret for them because they know how personal and serious it is so I've obviously been scared to tell them because I thought well I don't want you to look at me and think that I'm some plague walking person but thankfully they they haven't I explained that I've got knowledge about it now I've never had a label for it as I told you guys so I was just very mindful my current partner he is yeah one of a kind he's very very open-minded

very understanding and he hates the stigma behind it as well so he was very very good about it so gave me the feels when you're like he's one of a kind I'm like I love that yeah yes yes I'm so glad that you said that because I think like one of the biggest things that people are so fearful of when they first find out that they have an STI and one that they're going to have for life but is not life-threatening you know like say HPV or herpes there is this incredible fear of how do I go into my next relationship and tell that person and also this feeling of like maybe I'm never going to find someone who's going to love me like the way I am and that's because of this social stigma of that is surrounding it but every person that I know that I've had these conversations with

people who I've also dated who have had an STI when you show up with vulnerability and you have a really raw connection with someone who you trust and someone who you love or who you want to have a relationship with I would say majority of people unless they're an absolute arsehole are going to front up to that conversation and not judge you they're going to appreciate the vulnerability they're going to appreciate the honesty and from that you'll have a really honest and kind conversation that will flow and yeah sure they might ask questions at least it leaves open the door to have a conversation where you can educate someone around what it is that you're experiencing because I do think that there is so much misinformation around what herpes is and what

a lot of the other STIs are as well so I'm so glad that you said that from all the people that you've sat down and had conversations with even some of the ones that were the harder conversations who you thought I don't know whether I can trust this person I don't know whether they're going to go and tell their friends or their mates or whatever that they've still treated you with the respect that you deserve and I think for a lot of people that's something that's genuinely surprising is that the way people react to this majority of the time is exactly how we should react which is being understanding it's I think everyone who has it can relate that every time you get into relationship and it's like okay yep they understand I've had about this is my third serious relationship

with my current partner so my last two it was sort of like okay I've told them and they're understanding it's great let's let's do this and then we break up and then then it's this feeling of oh god I've got to go through that again and tell the next person I hope they understand I hope they're open to it with my current partner I knew it just from other conversations we've we've had he's a very open-minded person so I knew that he would be okay with it but it's still a very nervous conversation to have again it's that stigma it's like I hope it's more talked about so then it's not as hard for people the next time they need to tell someone why is it so important to you to speak openly about this like I mean I was I was so grateful for how many people reached

out and were willing to share their stories we understand that there is this stigma surrounding it but why was it so important for you to be able to kind of have that conversation on a public platform? Because I'm a very passionate person. I believe in what is right. And for someone who has to deal with it for the rest of their life now, I don't want anyone to feel that they're different, that they're unworthy, that they're not lovable because they absolutely are. And I don't want it to rule their lives because it's taken me till now to not let it rule my life. And I just want that for everyone I guess I just want more awareness around it I want the stigma to go it just sort of makes my blood boil when people put it down so much and like it's a horrible thing

when it's when it's not it's just a skin condition when you really break it down it's nothing to be ashamed of because I hear so many people get upset about you know it's ruling their lives and it's the end of the world and it's absolutely not so yeah I just want people to not feel so alone and that's so amazing and that's why I mean that's exactly the reason we did this episode it's exactly the reason we wanted to speak to you so nice to speak to somebody that's so passionate about it and so open about it and that's living a really healthy normal life knowing that it doesn't have to affect your relationship you can have these beautiful relationships still the fact that you have dated so many people and told them and that they have been accepting of

it your partners I think that that's going to give people a lot of hope that if they have been diagnosed with the virus that it's not the end of the world yeah and we wanted this to be an episode that people can come back to as well you know that maybe if it's not something that's affecting you but maybe if you find out your friend or somebody is struggling with maybe a new diagnosis and they're in that period of their life where they're like fuck maybe I'm you know how am I ever going to have these conversations with my partners you know I feel unlovable I feel unworthy and all of the other shit that goes with it we really want people to be able to come back to this episode and use it as a tool to feel a bit more empowered

and to feel like there are other people out there who are going through exactly the same thing and that you're not defined by the fact that, yeah, sure, whatever, you get a breakout once a year. It's not a big deal. Exactly. And that's exactly right. I mean, to some, it is a big deal,

but I just want them to know that it's not, it's okay. And it's manageable and there are ways to heal it and to move past it. I don't know another podcast that has talked about it. So I'm so glad that so many people listen to this, that they will get knowledge about it. I just hope this helps. Guys, on the podcast today, we have Dr. Hannah Kelly,

and she is a medical doctor working in general practice who has spent the last few years working in sexual health, women's health and sexual assault services. She is also the host of her very own podcast, which is Knee Deep, Sexual and Reproductive Health with Dr. Hannah. now you guys ask us so many questions on ask uncut and a lot of the questions that we do get in are around sexual health and some of the more taboo topics like stis and we just don't have the skills or the knowledge to be able to answer those questions so we wanted to put a call out there

to you to ask whatever questions you want to in regards to sexual health and we have an expert because it's not us if there's anyone that's going to know about stis it's hannah oh no i didn't even mean that in that way. That sounds dodgy. It certainly does. It sounded dodgy but I meant because you're a specialist. Yeah hey Hannah welcome to Life Uncut what an intro. Thank you for having me I'm very excited to be here. For this episode we put out a call out to all of our followers and we wanted to give them the opportunity of doing like an Ask Uncut but with somebody who is a specialist in this field and one of the most common questions that we received was around STIs and I think there is still so much stigma and so much taboo that

circulates around STIs and the conversation about STIs. So what I wanted to know from you is just how common are STIs in Australia? Yeah, so I think STIs are a lot more common than we probably realise. And it is because no one talks about it. Everyone's embarrassed to talk about it. So we kind of probably don't realise that if you've not yourself had an STI, probably someone that you know has. It's a bit tricky to answer it in terms of how common are STIs overall, because there's so many different ones and they all have really different incidents and prevalence and affect different groups and things like that. And what is the most common STI? Is it chlamydia? Is it herpes? Is it something I've never heard of? Great guesses. Chlamydia is the most common. So there's about

100,000 cases a year in Australia and most people don't have symptoms so don't know about it until they have a test and unfortunately does tend to affect young people the most. So that kind of 15 to 29 year old age group tend to be who we diagnose chlamydia in most commonly. And you're totally right, herpes is another really common one, genital warts, all the stuff people have heard about. There's lots of other things too, like syphilis, HIV, that kind of stuff, hepatitis B, you know, there's heaps of them around. But in Australia, we're doing a little bit better with some and a little bit worse with others. So do you think that the fear that surrounds STIs is justified? Or do you think that there is a bit of not, I wouldn't say hysteria, because obviously,

we need to still protect ourselves, but how isolated people feel when they do get an STI or they are dealing with having to talk to their partners about having herpes or talk to their partner about having HPV or something. Do you think that that is a justified amount of fear that surrounds STIs? So I think stigma is the biggest issue with STIs and often the physical fallout of most STIs is not that great, but the psychological, emotional, all that kind of stuff that goes along with it is the big thing. Yeah, you're totally right. It's a hard line to kind of walk because on the one hand, we do want to be kind of hyper aware. We want to be safe. We want to protect ourselves and others. But by the same token, just because someone has herpes

doesn't mean that we should ostracize them or, you know, not have sex with them even, you know, we need to be open-minded and sex positive and all that kind of stuff. So certainly talking about STIs is really important and maybe just reassessing how we think about them as well. So like cold for example skin infection comes and goes same with herpes it's not the end of the world and it's manageable I think on the one hand may be justified and on the other hand probably we could be better at how we think about them one of the questions we got a lot of in regards to herpes was I mean this comes in two parts the first one is can you pass on herpes and can you catch herpes if you use a condom if you use protection and the other half to that question is if you're going to

use a condom, do you still need to tell that partner that you have herpes? Great questions. And I get asked these a lot. Basically, so the law in New South Wales around your obligations is just that you need to take reasonable precautions to protect other people. So you're not obliged to tell every single sexual partner that you've been diagnosed with herpes in the past. Because particularly with casual partners or, you know, one night stands, flings, that kind of stuff, it's really quite emotionally draining to have to have that conversation over and over and over again. So if you've not disclosed, you need to take reasonable precautions. So that means using a condom or if you've got like a cluster of blisters at the time, just not having sex when

that's happening. Because herpes is just spread by skin to skin contact, condoms can convey some protection, but it's not a hundred percent. If you tend to get herpes outbreaks on the shaft of the penis, for example, the condom is going to cover that site. And so it's probably less likely it'll be transmitted but people can get herpes on areas of the genital skin that aren't necessarily protected by condoms whether internal or external condoms so yeah I didn't realize that there were actual laws around I mean I knew that there were with things as serious as HIV but I didn't realize just with more common STIs that there were laws around how you needed to have conversations with sexual partners and what that entails nor did I I didn't know that that was something that was so

black. Well, I mean, I guess in what you've said, there's still a massive gray area around how you can deliver that information or how you can take control of that situation. But I just thought it was more of a, it's the right thing to do to have that agency of choice. How does herpes present itself? Because herpes was the biggest one that we got questions about. I think that the two main ones that we received questions around were around HPV and herpes. So herpes is really common. About one in eight sexually active adults we think has genital herpes. It's a bit hard to know exactly who has it and how many people because it's not a notifiable disease in Australia but we estimate about one in eight and the way it tends to present is usually so when you acquire the virus most

people won't get symptoms straight away and it can be days weeks months even before you have a first kind of episode or outbreak. The things that people tend to notice with an initial herpes outbreak are painful ulcers or blisters on the genitals so whether that's little fluid filled lesions or breaks in the skin, that kind of thing. And there's a whole host of other things that can go along with it too. So a lot of women in particular find that if they're passing urine and they've got an outbreak, that can be really painful. People can feel just generally pretty unwell with a first outbreak of herpes too. So you might get fevers or feel really tired, exhausted. Some people get lymph nodes up and stuff like that. I guess just tingling,

itchiness, redness of the skin. There's lots of different kind of nuances to how it can present. But as the kind of natural history of herpes is that as time passes, episodes get less painful, less severe, less frequent. So you might have recurrences where there could be lesions internally that you can't see and they're not painful anymore. So you may not be aware of them. And that's one of the tricky things with herpes. A lot of people, even when they're really trying to do the right thing, can still unknowingly pass the virus on. And also to even if you don't have any blisters or anything like that, normal skin can shed the virus too. so yeah it's a tricky one so can you just explain to us a little bit about how the virus like works

how it lives in the body how it presents itself just from a bit more of a medical background not just as a symptomatic way but like how does it work basically it's transmitted as i said by skin to skin contact but once the virus itself infects the skin it has this kind of unusual habit of laying dormant in the nerve roots in the spine and then through time for whatever reason the virus can kind of be reactivated. And so what people tend to notice is that they have outbreaks that often occur in the same place over and over and over again. Some people notice really clear triggers for their recurrences. So some people might notice if they sleep really badly or if they're partying a lot, you know, going out, that kind of thing. If they're really run down,

that can be a trigger. Or if you have like other illnesses, even like a cough or a cold or flu, that can be a trigger because your immune system's a bit down, that type of thing. people often quote stress as a common reason they have episodes as well and the same is true for cold sores so lots of people know how cold sores tend to behave and it's you know it's the same thing with herpes on the genitals. So what is the correlation between genital herpes and your generic cold sores that people get on their face? I mean like I know that nobody wants to have a cold sore on their face but I feel like socially we're a bit more like oh you've got a cold sores whatever. Whereas going back to that whole idea around stigma of STIs, there's a pretty clear line

that's been drawn in the sand in conversation around herpes. But what is actually the difference between the two? Yeah, it's a great question and you're so right. It's purely a location thing. So it's the same virus. There are two strains of the virus. So there's herpes type 1, herpes type 2. Traditionally, we used to say that herpes type 1 caused cold sore, so lesions on the mouth, whereas herpes type 2 caused genital herpes but because you know it's 2021 people have oral sex people have all different types of sex we can pick up either type of the virus in either location now and we know that over 50% of genital herpes is now caused by type 1 which was the traditional mouth related lesion virus so it's the same viruses that cause these lesions it's only

difference is the skin that it affects so the location basically. Can you tell me what impact that has on people's lives. And I know you mentioned it very briefly in regards to like, there is obviously physical symptoms, but it's the mental side effects that can often be the most damaging for some people who are dealing with having a STI. Can you talk me through sort of what impact that has? Yeah, so you're totally right. There's the physical side of stuff, which tends to be the more you get used to it, the less problematic it is. Every now and then you'll just have physical symptoms that come and go, short duration. Sometimes you'll take a short course of tablet antivirals to help the symptoms go away sooner. I do really think that the

psychological side of stuff with herpes is the bigger thing. And really sadly, actually, it can cause quite a lot of psychosexual dysfunction. So people can avoid having sex. You know, I've met people who are diagnosed with herpes and they just stop having sex altogether because they're so ashamed. There's so much stigma. They don't want to have that conversation. They're really fearful of passing it on and kind of making life difficult for someone else. And that's really, you know, sad. And then because it's a painful condition too, sometimes you can get issues around chronic pain with it as well, depending on the individual. That's quite rare, but certainly it can affect your overall sexual function. And I think that's why it's so important that as a society, we look

at it differently. It's a skin condition. It comes and goes just so people aren't so ashamed and guilty about it because at the end of the day we really don't want a boring skin infection to have such grave consequences on people's long-term mental health and sexual health well that was one of the biggest things that I found that was coming through from the questions that we were receiving and it was that a lot of people who were asking these questions were people who were struggling with herpes from our own community and they were like I don't know how to have these conversations with my sexual partners I don't know what my obligation is I don't even know how to broach the conversation. So I'm either avoiding it altogether or I'm avoiding sex altogether.

How would you recommend somebody who is getting into a new sexual relationship with someone who they're really interested in and they're not just wanting to use precaution, but they're wanting to like, you know, have a genuine, honest conversation around it. How would you recommend someone approaches that conversation? Yeah, it's a tough one and it depends a lot, I guess, on your relationship and where you're at with that kind of thing. I totally understand if it's someone that you're dating, you're probably, a lot of women in particular do want to have that conversation earlier because it's such a trust issue as well. Like you don't want to date for three months, six months, and then eventually be like, oh, by the way, I've got herpes because they feel like

they're really betraying the trust of their partner. I think it's just about being open and honest. And if you have a good idea about what herpes is and what it means for you long-term, then you can give your partner a lot of reassurance and education and information around it too. I always am likening it to cold sores because that's something that people already have an understanding of and a grasp of and you don't cut people out of your life just because they've got cold sores and the same should be true for genital herpes in my opinion something that we did in the sexual health clinic is that often when we give people a new diagnosis of herpes they do see the counsellor just to chat about you know this is my relationship situation how should I go about

talking to them and a lot of people bring their partner in so that they can talk with the counsellor or with the doctor. Because I think, yeah, one of the big problems is if people tell their partner they have herpes and then they go online and they say, oh, incurable, severe symptoms, they see all this awful, terrifying information. And then they're just like, no, I don't want any part of it. So I think, yeah, you being informed as the person living with a herpes infection is the best thing you can do and just be open and honest. And at the end of the day, I guess if somebody doesn't want to be with you because you've got herpes, maybe they're not the greatest person to be with anyway. I have a friend who has herpes and this was a long time ago that she was diagnosed

like it was probably don't quote me maybe eight years and that's sort of a time before it was spoken about like we're speaking about now we don't know as much about it but the general rule that I think everyone knew was you should talk about it with a new partner. Anyway she met someone and she came to me and said should I tell them I don't want to tell them like I'm embarrassed I'm mortified again because it wasn't spoken about and I said look the right thing to do is yes to tell them because imagine if this was a role reversal you would want to know 100% and I was like if they don't want to be with you after that well then that's their problem so she did the right thing she told them they had the discussion they did their research and then fast forward

they got married and they've been together ever since so I think it's just a prime example of and that was back then before there was so much knowledge it's if you can just go and do your research i think people understand that it's not a death sentence like it's not the end of the world it doesn't mean you can't have a normal healthy sex life and a normal healthy relationship i totally agree i think that one of the big things as well as is like if it's someone who you really connect with and you really want to be in a relationship with and they are open in their communication around how it affects their life what their symptoms are that they're going through i mean i personally i want to share this story because it's going to put somebody else's mind at ease

who is struggling with having that conversation with a new partner. So I actually dated a guy for maybe eight months when I was in my late twenties. And when we first met, we just clicked and I was really, really in love with him. I would say we had a great relationship, but he off the bat, after we had been dating for about two weeks, he really put off sort of any sexual anything. And I was like, what is going on here? Why is he stalling? Do you not have a willy? I was like am I being friend zoned I'm not sure I'm buying you lingerie yeah yeah yeah until it got to a point where I was trying to jump his bones and he was literally like hey we need to have a conversation about something and we were at dinner one night and he sat me down to tell me

that he had herpes and I was like okay well what does that mean what does that mean for us and for how we have sex and what how we move forward because I at the time I was pretty naive to it as well and he explained to me he had had one outbreak he was on antiviral medication he had never had anything since then but that he felt this real obligation to tell people that he wanted to be in a long-term relationship with because he wanted someone who he wasn't one lying to and two he wanted people to be fully aware of the choices that they were making and we ended up dating for about eight months and I never ever caught anything and it never impacted our sex life because he never had an outbreak in the time that we were together and so the reason why I want to

share that is not because I want to say oh well I didn't catch anything but it's because you can have a very normal sexual relationship on both sides of the spectrum if you're with somebody who has herpes and also if you're somebody who has herpes I think you just have to have very honest conversations to start that and also just be aware of yourself and what you're doing to help keep the other person safe in that relationship so that they feel safe as well and I think that was a really big thing for us is that I knew that that he was taking every single precaution possible to keep me safe as well. There was a lot of respect in that, which was important to me. Yeah. And I think if most reasonable people, if someone's being so honest and vulnerable with you, most

people aren't going to have like a crazy reaction and be grossed out or horrified. Most people will be like, thank you. That's like really kind of you to tell me that personal information. And yeah, that's great. And there's lots of stories like that. I think often people are pleasantly surprised by how their partners react. There's this really good Instagram page called My Boyfriend has herpes and it's like all these cute little cartoons and it's about like this couple navigating one of them having herpes and one not. So if anyone is listening and does have herpes and is trying to do that then maybe check that out because it's really cute kind of representation of stuff. And so like instead of actually sitting down and telling them you can just send them a

meme. Agreed. So just kind of jumping on to a conversation around genital warts only because that was the second most common question that came up but how common is HPV in Australia? Yeah, so HPV is really common. They estimate about 90% of adults will be infected with at least one strain of HPV at some point in their life. So it's really, really common. HPV or human papillomavirus, it's actually a group of viruses and there's over 100 different strains. There are two strains, 6 and 11, that are associated with genital warts. And then there's a couple of strains that are considered high risk strains associated with certain cancers. And then there's a whole bunch of other strains of the virus that you know we don't really know what their clinical

significance is but yeah there's about 40 known types that can be can infect genital skin and be potentially transmitted sexually yeah wow it's just I just didn't realize it in this conversation I'm like how did I get to a 33 year old woman who's had an active sex life who's very educated in the medical industry too but there's so much I don't know about it so I'm finding it very fascinating I had a really beautiful patient recently she was only 19 and diagnosed with herpes and she was like really struggling a lot and I encouraged her I was like do you have a good like girlfriend a friend you can talk to about it because often that's the best thing and it was really funny she ended up telling her friend and the friend was like oh my god me too

and so that was like a really really helpful thing for them because they were like yeah well they can help each other it's common the more we talk about it the less people will be fearful of talking about it themselves because everyone thinks that they are the minority everyone it's like the same with I mean I'm not comparing it but it's the same sort of thing as the me too movement like it only took that one person to come out and then another person to be like me too literally that happened to me and everyone's like same it's the same thing as STIs it's like if people started to talk about it openly and be like put their hand up and say that has affected me as well I think so many people in your friend groups would say look I've had that before as well like

you're not the only one. Something I wanted to know if can you give us a bit more information around how does the cervical cancer vaccine work? Yeah so this is a vaccine most people would know by its trade name, which is Gardasil. And there's been a few other variations through time, but at the moment it protects you against nine strains of the HPV virus. And so the reason that it's effective, basically like many immunizations, it has very complex ways of working, but it basically introduces a virus-like protein to your body. So your immune system makes antibodies to that virus so that if you come in contact with it in real life, your immune system will clear it so you don't become infected with it. The reason that it's so effective for cervical cancer is

because most cervical cancers are caused by prolonged infection with the HPV virus, particularly the high-risk strains, so 16, 18, 45. The vaccine that we have on the market at the moment covers against those high-risk strains, as well as the strains that cause genital warts. So that's kind of how it works. And basically, if you're young, so 12, 13 years old you only need two doses but anyone that's over 15 I think you need three doses so I did not know that that is what cervical cancer could stem from I'm like mind blown if you saw my face right now I was like I didn't know it came from prolonged HPV to me that's I don't know how many people would know that I don't know if I'm a minority in myself in that so if you already have the HPV

virus and then you go and have the cervical cancer vaccine is that still helpful yeah so I guess that's something we're continuing to look into. It is most effective if given before your sexual debut, they call it. So before you have sex for the first time. That's like the medical lingo for losing your virginity. I love that. How was your debut? Look, it wasn't the best. We'll come back and try again. But yeah, so the vaccine is thought to be most effective if given before you have sex for the first time, because you're not going to have been exposed to the virus yet. And also because you have a really effective immune response when you're young and healthy so you can still get it if you've had sex before so a lot of people missed out because it only came out I

think it's 2007 maybe so unfortunately at the moment it's not subsidized by the government for anyone who wants it it's only that younger age group but you can still chat to your GP about it and if you really want to have it done when you're a bit older you just need to pay for it. Do you need to get a booster if you like as an adult is that one is that something that you're supposed to go and you know 10 years later make sure you get another shot or something? Very insightful question Britt. Sorry I'm really getting into the nitty-gritty. No no it's actually a really good question because it's not been around for you know like a really long time at the moment the recommendation is just to have that initial primary course of the vaccine and there's no

suggestion at the moment that we should be having boosters later in life. Okay Dr Hannah we're going to hit you with some questions that have come in from the listeners that are all related to different things so just going to start with bacterial vaginosis was one that we got a lot of a lot of people have asked about that and these are honestly things that Laura and I could never ever talk about so we're so stoked you're here and I mean not because we don't want to I mean we just don't know the information so can you talk to us about what is bacterial vaginosis how do you know if you've got it is at the end of the world and what you can do about it Yeah, so I'm not surprised you got lots of questions about bacterial vaginosis or BV

because it's actually the most common cause of an increase or change in vaginal discharge for young women. So it's super, super common. Basically what happens is the vagina has quite a sensitive microbiome and there's lots of healthy bacteria there called lactobacilli and that's the normal state of things. For whatever reason, you can get an interruption in that normal bacteria in the vagina. So you'll lose that good lactobacilli and you might get overgrowth of other types of bacteria like Gardnerella and all these different things. And basically what happens when that bacteria changes is that the pH of the vagina increases. So normally the vagina is very acidic, but that change causes it to become a bit more basic.

And the other thing is you kind of produce amines, which makes the discharge smell bad too. So people describe like a fishy odor to BV. It's certainly not the end of the world having BV. It's annoying because, you know, smelly vaginal discharge, nobody really wants that. But in terms of long-term health effects, it's not, you know, an overly concerning thing to deal with. Usually women just come in, they present and they say, oh, I've got this weird discharge. What's going on? We do some swabs. Usually we would do an STI check at the same time, just to make sure it's nothing else like that causing their symptoms. And if it is BV and they're bothered by it, we can just do a course of tablet antibiotics. And usually it settles down. The tricky thing with BV is that

it can be highly recurrent for some women. So a lot of women who have one episode will go on to have another one in the next kind of three to six months. So essentially anyone, because it was so common. So any of you that are listening that have had these sort of symptoms, it is as easy as going to get a checkup and just getting some antibiotics. So please don't hold off on that and hesitate and think that it could be something worse. It could be something else for sure, but it's really nice to know that it is quite a simple fix. But also that it's so common. What are some of the things that causes it what would cause the sort of natural bioflora to be imbalanced or for your ph levels to be out what's something that could trigger that in someone this is actually an area

people are doing lots of research into and i guess one of the commonly accepted triggers for bacterial vaginosis is douching or cleaning inside the vagina so whether that's with water or feminine hygiene products or soaps anything like that actually cleaning internally is not great for the microbiome. So the less you do, as everyone should know, the vagina is a self-cleaning organ. So just leave it alone. It will do its thing. Well, if Patra would be happy with that recommendation. No, she wants you to steam that vagina daily. There's some thought too that at the moment we don't consider BV to be a sexually transmitted

infection, but I know down at Melbourne Sexual Health, they're doing a bit of research into that. And if a woman in particular has really recurrent or troublesome BV, whether we should be testing and treating partners so that might be a kind of place we move to in the future because sometimes having a new sexual partner can trigger bv possibly some association with smoking so if you're a heavy smoker and getting lots of bv it's always worthwhile you know looking at potentially cutting down if you can but yeah a lot of women you know we talk to about what could be causing it what could be contributing and a lot of the time we frustratingly don't actually we're not able to pinpoint why it's happening to a certain individual it's just one of those frustrating

things. Does being on the pill affect your fertility? Like if you've been on the pill for a long time and does being on the pill for a long time, I don't want to just say affect your fertility in terms of it can make you infertile. I mean, affect your fertility, like makes it harder for you just to fall pregnant. If you've been on it for 15 years and you come off, everyone's like, it could take you a year or two because you were on the pill. Is that real? Or is it taking you a year or two to fall pregnant? Because it was always going to take you a year or two to fall pregnant. Yeah, so it's the latter. The research into this does not at all suggest that being on the contraceptive pill adversely affects fertility. Sadly, it is one of those things that's gotten

a lot of traction and I see it on social media, a lot of fear mongering around the pill and telling people, you know, it's really unnatural, it's really unsafe, you shouldn't be on it, it will, you know, prevent you from having babies. One of the tricky things is we can't prove to women that, you know, if you, because you can't live and be on the pill for say 12 years and then also have a version of yourself that wasn't on the pill to directly compare what your fertility rates would be. But certainly it's a question that we look at with every type of contraceptive on the market. And if there were significant impacts on fertility, it wouldn't be something that we would so routinely prescribe. So the majority of women will return to their usual cycle within a couple

of months of coming off the pill. So a lot of women within just the first four weeks will have a period and the majority within three months. Certainly anything beyond that six month kind of after coming off the pill, if there's issues with either re-establishing your cycle or not falling pregnant, it's not associated with the pill. The one exception, sorry, I'll just mention the Depo-Provera injection. That's the hormonal injection that we give every 12 weeks as a contraceptive for some women. It is known to have a significant delay to return to fertility. So that can be up to 18 months to even kind of two years or so. So that's the main exception that we quote I used to and I know I'm not alone I used to skip the sugar tablets on the pill all the time

so I could I just didn't never wanted my period and I was like this is bloody brilliant I never have to have my period is that bad for you because a lot of people are like it's not normal it's not natural you gotta let your body bleed and do its thing and I was like well there's no you're like well that's really inconvenient for me so I'm gonna but I want to go to the beach I want to have sex and they are inconvenient like of course but is that is that bad for people that want to continuously skip the sugar. And actually having said that now, I could only ever do it for probably three months. And then my body regardless would be like, this is happening. Like, I don't care if you're skipping it and I'll get a period anyway. Yeah. So the shorter answer is no, it's

not unsafe to do that. The pill was kind of developed with a lot of influence from society and social constructs at the time. So people felt it's normal to have a period. So let's incorporate that into the medication, it made it more acceptable to society at the time, like back in the 60s when it was developed. And that has persisted. There are pills now where, you know, there's either a shorter sugar pill window or no sugar pills. But yeah, it's perfectly safe to do that. It doesn't increase your risk of, you know, changing your fertility or cancers or anything like that. You can do that if that's convenient for you. You're totally right, though, if you do run a lot of pill packs together and keep missing the sugar pills, sometimes women will experience

breakthrough bleeding. So you might get spotting or an actual period. And usually I would just recommend to women at that point in time, that's a good opportunity to then just to have a seven day, you know, have the sugar pill. Well, that's great to know because I've just done it for 15 years. How effective is, and I like, I know it's not that effective. I've had two children. How effective is the pullout method? Lol, it's not surely. But so many people ask and I know the problem is is so many people use it and I even have girlfriends who have used it and they've never been pregnant and so in their mind they're like oh it's so effective I use the pull-out method and I'm like yeah cool I used it too and then I had a kid so you know what if you don't

want to be pregnant maybe don't take the gamble but how effective is it but people don't realize you only get that one little tiny window of ovulation as well I think people think you can fall pregnant over a way broader spectrum than you actually can I guess in terms of the pull-out method or withdrawal method, it's unfortunately one of the least effective types of contraception that we have. They usually quote, I think about 70% effectiveness, which means, yeah. I mean, it's higher than what I thought. I thought that it was not effective at all, but there's obviously some. Yeah. But if your man's a little bit too excited, there's going to be some pre-cum in there. He's not going to wait till the end.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. That's the issue with it. The pre-ejaculate or pre-cum can have sperm in it that can be motile and can make you pregnant. So I guess a lot of why it's potentially a bit effective too is because there's only, as you say, Brit, certain times in your cycle where you are potentially fertile. I wouldn't rely on it. If you're absolutely not in a place to have a baby, it's probably not the best option. But if you're kind of like, oh, if I get pregnant, I'll have a baby, then sure, why not? Yeah. So I think there are a lot of people that are like, I've been doing the pullout method now for like three years and I haven't even had a scare. And that's like well probably you haven't just been in that 12 hour highly fertile window that you've

done it like maybe you've just been lucky that you haven't known that you've been not of you know you haven't been ovulating so I think that people get this false sense of security with the pullout method so anyone listening use a condom or just don't have sex or track your periods don't have sex around ovulation but don't rely on the pullout method Laura I'm looking at you I'm speaking to doesn't want me to have number three but if somebody wanted to go down the route of using non-invasive or has the least effect on their hormones and I think that there is a bigger push towards more natural remedies these days and people wanting to use natural remedies for their bodies what would you recommend is the most natural remedy apart from the pull-out method

yeah so there are there's within the kind of concept of natural family planning there's a few different types. So the symptom thermal is the kind of most effective way. And that's a combination of tracking your cycle. So making sure that you can really only rely on it if you are having a regular length to your cycle. So a period the same number of days apart each month. And also looking at, you know, the cervical mucus thickness and stuff like that, measuring your basal body temperature, the more different methods of natural family planning you combine to help work out when your fertile time is, the more effective that's going to be. And some women either, if they know when their fertile period is, they'll just not have sex during that time. But others say, oh,

well, I'll still have sex, but I'll use a condom. So yeah, certainly the symptom thermal method is much more effective than the withdrawal method. Another common one, well, not that common, I guess, but another one people might've heard of is lactation amenorrhea, which is basically if you're breastfeeding exclusively for that first kind of few months after having a baby, the chance of you falling pregnant is low but again it's not a foolproof method so the best method i have found is having a long distance boyfriend it's phone sex if you guys don't want to get pregnant just have sex by the internet there is no penetration with sexting or zoom sex and we have done a whole episode around contraception guys as well which you can go

back and find if you're really interested in kind of getting through the nitty-gritty of what each type is and what are the pros and cons of each type of contraception but dr hannah before we let you go I do want to ask you about one more thing and this was like the next most common question that we were getting in and it's something that I think every single woman has dealt with at some point or another and that is around UTIs now I know that they are super common I've had many in my lifetime and they fucking suck I'm going to tell you that but what causes a UTI and do you have to pee after sex yeah that question's coming that is the million dollar question. So basically UTIs, urinary tract infections, are caused by bacteria ascending

up through the urinary tract. So it's usually bacteria that lives in the bowel and it makes its way through the urethra into the bladder. In some severe circumstances, it can also affect the kidneys and the higher urinary tract as well. Women, as you all probably know, are much more likely to get urinary tract infections compared to men. And that's because we have short urethras. you know we don't have penises so obviously with men there's a lot further for the bacteria to travel so it's got to be a super bug almost to make its way up there and infect a man but for women we have short urethras and close to the bowel so it's just really easy for that to be introduced they are super super common and usually easily managed with the why why do some people get

them more often than other people yeah another great question there's some anatomical reasons that people can be predisposed but for the most part again we we don't really know why some women do, some women don't. It's the same as BV. There's not great evidence to say this is why, this is why not. There are some things that we know to be risk factors, like just general hygiene. Obviously, we recommend not having like anal sex and then vaginal sex or, you know, when you're wiping after you go to the bathroom, always front to back, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, in general, most women say, no, I do all of those things and I still get UTIs. And we know that UTIs can be associated with sex, possibly something in the mechanics of sex does

introduce bugs but and is the peeing after sex thing legit like is that something we should be doing because everyone's like you have to get up and pee otherwise straight away as soon as it's finished so basically it's it hasn't been proved in any like high quality studies that it does prevent UTIs could you imagine someone doing like a really in-depth study with loads of participants and the only part of that research study is did you pee after sex yes or no did you get a UTI yes or no, that's it. Quantitative study. I know. So basically the recommendation is that if you are someone that is really prone to UTIs and sex is a trigger, maybe pee after sex is a good thing to try because it's not going to be harmful to try that intervention. But if you're not someone

that gets UTIs, like don't worry. So now I can relax in bed after the sex. Have a cuddle, lay in bed. After your phone sex, you don't have to go pee. It's okay. Dr. Hannah, thank you so much. we we're really grateful to have somebody on who is an expert in the field to be able to ask some of the questions that we haven't been able to answer on the podcast and also to be able to have a conversation around stis and work towards de-stigmatizing something that is affecting so many people within australia so many people who listen to this podcast and to have an open conversation around why it's not the worst thing in the world that could ever happen to you and how life can still be very very normal for you so we're really grateful for having you on and for

you giving your world of wisdom on this topic. I would love to have you back on down the track because there's so much we can't talk about, Laura and I, that we don't know about, but we get these questions constantly. So we'll definitely get you back on to answer some more listener questions. But just before you go, can you tell everyone where they can find you on the gram and your podcast and where they can find out more? Absolutely. So we've just changed our podcast name confusingly. So it's now called Knee Deep with Hannah. We do lots of podcast episodes on gynecology problems sexual health all that kind of stuff so I'm on the gram at knee deep with Hannah and also in the podcast app you can find us there and yeah thanks so much for having me

it's been really fun I could talk about this stuff all day long thank you so much Hannah everyone go and check out her pages if you have any questions or you want to know more there's so much information there I already know that because I stalked her and I listened to the pod and the reason why we found Dr Hannah was because well it was actually your old podcast name it was Wait, I'm going to say it wrong. You to you, you to you. See, this is the problem with it. It was you to you, you to me, you to us.

Yeah. Which was very, I love a pun on this podcast. Oh, it was bloody brilliant. It was a freaking great name. But I came across your podcast when we originally did our contraceptive episode. And it's always been in the back of my mind that when we did want to go down the track of having these conversations around STIs and around sexual health, that we were going to unpack this with somebody who knew exactly what they're talking about.

so guys if you do have any questions around endometriosis if you have any questions around polycystic ovarian syndrome around fertility dr hannah has done loads of episodes on all these different topics and so yeah we really highly recommend jumping on and having a listen to her podcast as well thanks dr hannah who knew stis could be so fun you guys know we never finish an episode without our suck in our sweet our highlight and our low like from the week Laura bring it on what is your suck this week well I have wait no I have one suck I have multiple but I'm just gonna tell you one Marley's limited wind it back hey let me just flip my list out of all my sucks Marley had gastro which has been really fun so I feel like that's

what I need to say how's that contraception working for you Brit I swear to god I come to your house and it's immediate contraception some days Brit's like I really want to have kids and then she comes and hangs out with me and she's like not that much though it's not for me so stay on ice so we went away for the weekend we had a beautiful time on friday saturday we went to a wedding and then we came back home my mum had minded marley so it was the very first time matt and i have ever had a night away from marley and i got home my mum was like oh look she's been a little bit off she she may have thrown up last night but it was only a little throw up i think she ate something that wasn't quite right anyway no no turns out my daughter had full-blown gastro

you know when it's like other mums are gonna get this like when they do a poo in their onesie and it is to their ankles and to their neck like that's where we were at it was literally like encased in the elastics at the bottom of her ankles and around her neckline like a little shit burrito like the sauce you put on top just put it in a barbecue sauce down my girl anyway so that required a 2am bath but she's been in great spirits you wouldn't know i'd swear to god she's having the time of her life swear to god the fact that jordan's overseas is one form of contraception hearing your stories is my second so that is my suck my suck was you know getting sleep in general is really really freaking hard let alone a 2am spray down i

fucking gurneyed my child in the bath at 2am to try and get poo out of her neck power hose It's one of those pressure hoses. So gross. So that was my suck and my sweet for the week. Look, guys, so many sweets. My one sweet is that we hit 10 million downloads. Yeah, we did. My second sweet is that I had a night away from my firstborn,

which was also a suck, but it was a sweet. We had a cute time. It was a good time. I go more sleep than what I normally get. And Matt's like, can we have sex? We've got no kids. You're like, bitch, I'm sleeping. Get off me.

We didn't. You didn't? We didn't. I was joking, but you actually did. We literally had really great sleep. we had the best sleep of our lives. No, we went to a wedding. So it wasn't like, look, if we'd had like a night away to be romantic, sure we would have, but we didn't because we went to a wedding and I went home at nine 30 and went to bed and Matt stayed out and partied.

Guys, I'm still breastfeeding. I had to take a newborn home. Newborns at weddings don't really mix. So you know what? Shit hits differently when you've got a newborn. Shit hits differently when it's in your onesie. Shit hits differently when your child has gastro. All right. But that's me. that's my suck and my sweet what was that sweet you had a night away I had a night away went to a wedding had a cute time with Matt and had really great sleep without sex yeah we slept together in the same bed okay my suck would be I've told you guys a while ago we did the episode on fertility with Dr Cheryl Foie I told you that after that episode I was going to freeze my eggs the time has finally arrived and I am midway through freezing it's been interesting and I

will we will do a whole episode on it I'm going to like completely cover it but I don't want to do it until I've done the whole cycle and I have taken and I don't want to say harvested until I have harvested the eggs and I know my results then we'll put it all together and I'll go through it all but I am I'm probably day four on the hormone injections and I was told that these last couple days were going to be the worst ones I've got migraines that were like non-stop because it's like a period on steroids I go to bed at like 12 or 1 a.m most nights that is standard but I've going to bed at 9 30 she told me she's like you'll have chronic fatigue you'll get headaches and the headache was the worst thing the sleep I was like this is brilliant like what even is this I'm in

bed early but the headaches have been really really bad but apparently they get better from tomorrow and then they won't get worse until the end so my suck is probably just the hormonal headaches but I'm super excited to get these bad boys out and see how many I can get because my results weren't great so I've been a bit anxious on how many eggs I'm actually going to get and I know that I've only got this one try and then I'm heading off until the end of the year really by the time I come back and I can get back into a cycle to freeze again so I'm really anxious about that but I'm excited to tell you about that my sweet would probably be this sounds so sad but I got out of Bondi today I left the Bondi bubble I went over to Manly to see a friend who you know

has come back from England not that long ago got a new house in Manly shout out to Ethan I know listen and it was really nice I went and had a few hours off put my phone down hung out with my friends was in a new environment and I loved it I was like wow Sydney is actually so beautiful when you can take a second to appreciate it when you like feel like you've had a mini holiday yeah I was just like it was only two hours in Manly but I was like girls gone wild but also but just on your side for a second like I think when we do get the opportunity to sit down and do this episode like you guys know we've done a big episode around what egg freezing is but being able to follow your journey with this and I know that there has been some real ups and downs with it

I think that's going to be really powerful and I think it's going to help a lot of people who are in a similar point in life as you are so I know that that episode isn't coming for a little while but I think it's going to be something really special when it does yeah and guys if you do want to have a listen and you haven't go back and listen to our fertility episode with Dr Cheryl Foire from the Jenea Clinic in Sydney I can really recommend that that is it for us today we hope that you got something out of the episode. You know, even if you aren't somebody who has struggled with STIs in your life, or you have had an STI, I hope that these sorts of conversations help you to better support your friends. I hope they help you to better support

your family members or your partner, if this is something that you ever encounter, because, you know, the more that we talk about uncomfortable topics, the more it helps us deal with them. And the more that we can break down the stigma that surrounds these sorts of things. So we really appreciate you listening to the episode. And also like always, if you've loved it, subscribe tell your friends and if you can go and give us a review if you've been listening to every episode you haven't left a review yet that would mean the world to brit and i because it really is the way that this little podcast continues to grow and you know the drill tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your nephew and your brother and your sister and your mother

and share the love because we love love We'll be right back.