STD Prevention Starts with You
January is the National Cervical Cancer Coalition’s Cervical Health Awareness Month. The annual awareness campaign focuses on the prevention and treatment of cervical cancers, diseases, and disorders. Women who are interested in learning more about the subject are invited to visit the NCCC online for more information.
Regular Pap Smears and HPV Testing Saves Lives
The annual initiative encourages Pap Smears and HPV testing regularly as well as proper vaccinations. Dr. Wilburn of Genesis Women’s Health Services provides the type of examinations, testing, and screenings needed to detect signs of cervical diseases right away, so they can be treated with diet, exercise, surgery, and medication.
Sharing is Caring on Social Media
Sharing information on social media about Cervical Health Awareness Month helps save lives. There are suggested tweets, Facebook updates, and even downloadable fact sheets, ebooks, and posters that you can use to assist you in raising awareness in your neighborhood, workplace, and community. Showing support for women who are battling cervical cancer allows you to do your part no matter what your income, skillset, and knowledge of the disease are.
Ways to Prevent Cervical Cancer By Changing Lifestyle Habits
There are many ways to prevent cervical cancer according to the American Cancer Society. The first is locating cervical pre-cancers which are done through a Pap Test. Dr. Wilburn administers this type of test at her clinic for women of all ages.
Knowing how HPV is spread is crucial, too. Unlike HIV which is transmitted through bodily secretions, the Human Papillomavirus Infection spreads during skin-to-skin contact and sex doesn’t need to be involved for it to occur. Hand-to-genital contact can cause it to spread so using the restroom is one way that HPV goes from one person to the next.
Using condoms helps keep bodily secretions away from another person. That means that the infected person has less of a chance of infecting his or her partner. Condoms aren’t 100% effective, so it’s important that men and women wash their hands and bodies regularly to prevent STDs such as HPV from occurring.
Not smoking and getting vaccinated are other ways to prevent cervical cancer. The HPV vaccination can help lower cervical cancer risk in women who are in their teens, twenties, and early thirties. No one vaccination works completely in protecting women from HPV which is why having regular checkups is advised.
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