TOILET DISEASE- REAL OR IMAGINARY?

‘’A lady walked up to her doctor, and complained l have vaginal discharge and it itches me; I guess I have toilet disease because I remember I used a public toilet 2 weeks ago and it was not looking so clean. What drug can I take?’’

This is usually a common scenario; the question we‘ll ask ourselves is how come males don’t usually complain of this so called toilet disease. Is it that males don’t go to the toilet?

The truth is there’s nothing like ‘toilet infection’ – it does not exist in the sense it is used.

There can be plenty of bugs lying in wait in public toilet; so many people consider the toilet seat to be number one public enemy- a playground for organisms responsible for sexually transmitted infection like Chlamydia or gonorrhea. Fear not, toilet seat is not a common vehicle for transmitting infections to humans.  The possibility of contracting a disease from a toilet seat is theoretically possible but extremely unlikely.

Be that as it may one can be at risk of contracting infectious diseases (faeco-oral diseases) from dirty toilets not because of sitting on dirty toilet seats but from touching toilet surfaces with one’s hands which can subsequently be used to contaminate other products we may take in leading to infection. These surfaces could be the door knob on entering/exiting toilet or touching the tap attached to the sink or even the toilet seat itself.

Faeco-oral diseases are infections that one can contract from using the toilet without observing the basic personnel hygiene. Examples of faeco-oral infections are cholera; dysentery, poliomyelitis, hepatitis A, hepatitis E, rotavirus gastroenteritis, salmonelosis, and shigellosis etc.This affect both sexes equally.

 ‘’WOMEN HAVE A WRONG NOTION THAT WHEN THEY HAVE VAGINAL DISCHARGE OR ITCHING, IT IS TOILET DISEASE. THIS IS NOT TRUE’’.

Here is a quote from the former president of the American Society for Microbiology, found on WebMD: “To my knowledge, “no one has ever acquired a sexually transmitted disease on the toilet seat—unless they were having sex on the toilet seat!”.

So, you do not have to worry about contracting sexually transmitted infections such as herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV through dirty toilet seats. These diseases are spread via unprotected skin to skin sexual contact. Most of the viruses or bacteria that cause them die very quickly outside the body so it is very unlikely that they can be transmitted through a dirty toilet seat. The same applies even to people who still use the traditional pit latrines, though may have increased risk of feco- oral diseases

‘The lady who attributes her vaginal discharge or itching as been acquired from the toilet, often forget that she is sexually active.’

Someone will now say, how come I have vaginal discharge and itching despite not been sexually active? There are other factors that may increase your risk of having a vaginal infection, including prolonged or inappropriate use of antibiotics, use of steroids e.g. prednisolone, douching,diabete mellitus, use of vaginal sprays and even cancers of the genital tract amongst others.

So dear friends let us stop putting blames on the toilet when we do have vaginal discharges;it has nothing to do with it. I hope this helps.