31 articles
Vaccines, PrEP, condoms and smarter ways to lower your risk.
You have more control over your risk than the headlines suggest. Vaccines wipe out several STIs entirely, PrEP and DoxyPEP cut transmission sharply, and a few small habit changes go a long way. These guides cover the prevention tools that genuinely work, and how to build the mix that fits your life.
Latest in std prevention & vaccines
The hepatitis B vaccine is given as either a 3-dose series (Engerix-B or Recombivax HB) at 0, 1, and 6 months, or a 2-dose series (Heplisav-B) with the two shots one month apart for adults 18 and olde
Read the guidePrEP is highly effective at preventing HIV when taken as prescribed. Taken consistently, it cuts the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99% CDC, Talk PrEP Together and from injection drug use by at
On-demand PrEP (2-1-1) is a way of taking oral PrEP pills around specific sex events instead of every day: two pills two to twenty-four hours before sex, one pill the next day, and one pill the day af
PrEP is daily or on-demand medicine that HIV-negative people take to prevent infection before exposure.
Some acts carry the full range of STIs, some carry almost none, and a few carry nothing at all. Here's a plain-facts guide to what really transmits an infection - and what's just a myth.
A condom breaking can feel like a crisis, but there's a clear order of operations. Two windows may still be open - HIV PEP and emergency contraception - and this planner sorts your next moves by how urgent each one is.
Two quiet reasons condoms fail: the wrong lube and the wrong size. Check whether your lube is condom-safe, find your fit by girth, and see which materials actually block STIs.
Plan B, ella, or a copper IUD - the most reliable morning-after option hinges on the clock and, less obviously, on your body weight. Here's how the three compare and how to pick the one that will actually work for you.
Condoms, PrEP, doxy-PEP, vaccines, U=U - they don't all protect against the same things, and the numbers vary a lot. Pick what you most want to prevent and see the methods ranked by real effectiveness, with the gaps each one leaves. It all runs in your browser.
Yes - you can get an STD from oral sex. The most common are gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, herpes (HSV-1 and HSV-2), HPV, and, less often, HIV.
Condoms and PrEP solve different problems. Condoms are a physical barrier that blocks many STDs - chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV - plus pregnancy.
Doxy-PEP and PrEP aren't the same thing. Doxy-PEP is an antibiotic (doxycycline) taken after sex to lower the risk of certain bacterial STIs like syphilis and chlamydia.
If you're on PrEP, plan on a check-in roughly every 3 months: an HIV test, screening for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis at the sites where you have sex, and a look at kidney function on the schedu
Receptive anal sex carries the highest per-act risk of HIV among common sexual activities - roughly 138 per 10,000 exposures, or about 1 in 70, from a partner with untreated HIV.
Truvada and Descovy are both daily PrEP pills that prevent HIV.
PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is medicine that HIV-negative people take before possible exposure to keep HIV from taking hold. It comes as a daily pill or a long-acting shot.
PrEP and PEP both prevent HIV, but the timing differs.
DoxyPEP is a single dose of the antibiotic doxycycline taken after sex to lower the risk of getting certain bacterial STIs.
Gardasil and Gardasil 9 are both HPV vaccines, but they cover different numbers of strains. The original Gardasil protected against four HPV types (6, 11, 16, 18).
Doxy-PEP (doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis) is a single dose of the antibiotic doxycycline taken after condomless sex to lower the risk of certain bacterial STIs.