Quote: (03-27-2012 11:21 AM)AlphaTravel Wrote:
He literally walked into a pharmacy and said "I had sex, the condom burst, I'm worried about STDs" and she gave him 2 different antibiotics, Zithromax and Floxcipro.
These are the correct medications to give for chlamydia and gonorrhoea, respectively. There is a rising problem in ciprofloxacin/floxcipro resistance in gonorrhoea worldwide, though.
It should also cover against lymphogranuloma venereum.
It won't cover trichomonas (although Trichomonas doesn't often bother men, you have to be really unlucky to be a man with a Trichomonas infection).
It may be adequate to cover syphilis, maybe not.
It won't protect against viral infections. Some post-exposure guidelines now advocate give the patient aciclovir to prevent herpes.
It won't protect against fungal STD, may even worsen a fungal STD.
It won't protect against HIV infection, which is relatively commoner in Thailand and is worth thinking about.
It won't protect against Hepatitis B and C infections. For that you'll need vaccinations and immunoglobulin to cover you until the vaccine kicks in. (Strangely, Hepatitis B is one of the most common STD's out there, and yet no one seems to be immunising against it. If you're a player, you may as well get immunised against Hepatitis B, get your 5 year booster shots, and have one less disease to worry about. Hepatitis B is ten times more infectious than HIV. You're more likely to catch Hep B than HIV).
Post-exposure antibiotic prophylaxis, HIV prophylaxis, and hepatitis prophylaxis are all reasonable in cases of unprotected sex with a partner not available for examination, since dealing with the risks of complications of STD's such as urethral strictures, infertility and genital cancer probably outweighs the risks of antibiotic side effects. Rape victims are routinely given antibiotics for such reasons. That said, your 'friend' has only got partial STD cover with his pharmacist regimen. My experience of most pharmacists is that they give themselves far too much credit in terms of medical knowledge and lack a knowledge of their own blind spots. They may know medications, but they don't understand diseases.
One last thought : A proper post-exposure prophylaxis course will have enough side-effects to make you seriously wonder whether the cure isn't worse than the disease. I've been on the HIV post-exposure prophylaxis and I barely made it through the month course. I swore if I got HIV that I'd rather die of AIDS than have to push such toxins into my body again, that's how bad it was.
