You had a great time Friday night, hooking up with someone as lonely as you were. but did your partner, whom you might never see again, leave something behind to remember him or her by?

Sexually transmitted infections have increased in number since El Paso County dumped its testing, surveillance and treatment program in late 2008. in 2009, the incidence of chlamydia — the most common STI — surged by 10 percent, to 2,928 cases. That pushed the incidence rate up from 447 per 100,000 people in 2008 to 484 in 2009. During that same time, the number of people statewide with the disease went up by 4 percent.

But more concerning to those who monitor such things may be the five local cases of syphilis, because they’re part of a dramatic uptick statewide. Thanks largely to an outbreak in Denver last year, the number infected with the worrisome STI increased by 56 percent, to 164.

“A 50 percent increase is an alarming increase,” says Ralph Wilmoth, who oversees the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s STI/HIV Disease Control and Environmental Epidemiology Division. “We’re working with Denver public health and notifying providers to be attentive to that. We’re working with the community so the community knows, so they’re aware of their need to be attentive to symptoms and to inform their health care providers that they should be tested.”

In late 2008, after a county sales-tax ballot measure was defeated, the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment announced cuts. in addition to 23 workers, investigations of sexually transmitted diseases were among the casualties. Gone were the county’s clinical and surveillance components, which included testing and treatment, plus efforts to notify a patient’s partners.

“When you have a local finger on the pulse in terms of STIs and doing investigations, you’re going to stay a bit more up to date, because you’re there every day,” says medical director Dr. Bernadette Albanese. “And we don’t have that anymore. For our community, it’s a loss.”

Not only does surveillance identify infected partners, it’s an avenue for education and prevention of diseases whose symptoms can be invisible, Albanese says. For instance, some STIs can cause scarring of the reproductive tract, which can lead to infertility, and even infection of a newborn.

The state has taken on El Paso County’s surveillance in special cases, as it already did for other counties. but it doesn’t test or treat except when dealing with outbreaks, like the Denver syphilis problem. its numbers come from labs and private physicians, all required to report positive test results.

The latest state numbers for chlamydia, for 2009, show that 2,029 women tested positive in El Paso County — higher than the preceding five years. (Data from 2010 won’t be available until May.) both Albanese and Wilmoth say chlamydia is probably not more prevalent in women than men, but women are more apt to seek medical services.

The syphilis numbers, while small, do present cause for concern; the 11 cases over the last two years represent a big jump from 2005′s single case. Late-stage syphilis can bring some nasty symptoms, even blindness and dementia, and syphilis at any stage also makes contracting HIV/AIDS easier.

Using active surveillance — “beating the bushes” for infected partners — can lead to treatment and the lowering of infection rates over time, says John Potterat, who worked STI investigations for the county between 1972 and 2001. When he started, he saw one case of syphilis a week. “When I left, we had a case per year,” he says. “If you’re not digging cases out of the woodwork, you really don’t know what’s out there.”

The state reports El Paso County is the third-highest for number of people living with HIV, at 422. in 2009, there were 22 new cases reported locally. Albanese says the county has a small grant to perform HIV testing but, again, mostly relies on the state.

When Victoria Stone, outreach case manager for homeless youth agency Urban Peak, started organizing an HIV testing program, she found little coordination.

“There are so many services and collaborators in Denver, and we don’t have that here,” she says. She notes, however, the Southern Colorado AIDS Project, planned Parenthood, the Pride Center and the Health Department have agreed to help. The goal of the “You know Different” campaign is to test everyone under 25 — the group with the fastest-growing incidence nationwide.

Testing is key, she says, because one in four people who have HIV don’t know it.

Stone and program worker Eric Pizana started with the LGBT community. in recent months, they’ve tested 17 young people with oral swabs that yield preliminary results within 20 minutes. no positives so far. anyone with a reactive test would be referred to Denver Children’s Hospital.

“If you get on medication,” Stone says, “you can live for a long time.”

Normal but Uncommon Ulcerative Colitis Symtpoms

For the past two weeks I have begun to notice a major uptick in the amount of sweat that comes out of me while I lay sleeping at night. This has hit me as quite strange because my ulcerative colitis symptoms are nearly gone. what I am talking about is the more typical runny bowels and bleeding and cramping. So, why would I be doing this sweating thing while everything else is quiet? It turns out that people who have inflammatory bowel diseases like ulcerative colitis often do sweat more than others at nighttime. there is not yet any scientific data that suggests the exact reason why this occurs, but this type of ulcerative colitis symptom is not held by just a few patients. I am not too worried anymore, but it sure would be nice for the night sweats to just go away. We will see if that happens once I stop the use of prednisolone steroids.

Another strange symptom of ulcerative colitis random but very painful headaches. they are also rare, but often ulcerative colitis patients who have never really had headaches before will have some very painful all day headaches out of nowhere after being diagnosed. there is always the chance that these are due to side effects from medication, but that is not always the case either. make sure to speak with your gastro doctor before you start taking pain medication for headaches, as there is a chance that they will interfere with your ulcerative colitis disease.

Hospitals in Northwest Florida are seeing an uptick in flu cases.

Sacred Heart Health system reported an increase in influenza at its hospitals in the area. during the second week of January, 158 patients were tested for flu-like symptoms, with 14 percent receiving positive results for influenza, according to a press release.

?Many patients are not officially tested for flu when they have flu-like symptoms,? Donna Mayne, Microbiology Lab manager at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, said in the release. ?That means the actual number of people suffering from the influenza virus could be much greater than our percentages indicate.?

The timing of flu is very unpredictable and can vary from season to season, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu activity most commonly peaks in the U.S. in January or February. however, seasonal flu activity can occur as late as May.

This year, most of the flu cases seen in the U.S. have been due to a Type A virus called H3N2, according to the Sacred Heart release. this virulent virus tends to trigger more pneumonia and other complications.

The 2010-2011 flu vaccine will protect against three different flu viruses: an H3N2 virus, an influenza B virus and the H1N1 virus that caused so much illness last season, according to cdc.gov.

There is still plenty of this year?s flu vaccine available, but those interested in getting it should do so right away since it takes about two weeks to take effect. The CDC recommends vaccine for most everyone, except infants younger than 6 months and people with severe allergies to eggs.

A person can spread the flu as early as one day before he or she even feels sick, and can continue to pass the flu virus to others for five to seven days after symptoms start. People who have the flu often feel some or all of these symptoms: cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headaches and fatigue. many, though not all, patients, have fever or chills and vomiting and diarrhea, cdc.gov says.