Why I hated having Chlamydia

Hey, and welcome back to another brand new

video. Today I want to talk about

chlamydia, so strap yourselves in for

another fun and uplifting story. 6 years

ago, I met this Japanese girl in a

guesthouse, and I found her to be very

attractive. She had a boyfriend, and I had

a girlfriend, so at that time I didn't

take any action. The next year I left

Japan, and it wasn't until 2 years later

that she would start emailing me. Just out

of the blue, she sent me an email asking

how I was, and we started emailing each

other on a daily basis. We didn't use

Skype or any instant messaging apps, just

good old-fashioned email. So one day we

were talking and I told her that I was

interested in going to Japan that year in

August, and I just asked her, could I stay

with you at your apartment? And

surprisingly she said yes, so I booked my

ticket straight away, of course, didn't

want to waste any time, and I went to

Japan 2 weeks later. I decided to go to

Japan in August of 2014,

and on the day that I was landing in

Japan, there was a huge typhoon at the

airport that I was supposed to land at,

so I couldn't land at the airport I was

supposed to. So when I got to Haneda

Airport in Tokyo, they had to redirect me

to Kumamoto Airport, which was in the next

prefecture. And then I got a 3-hour bus

from Kumamoto to Oita. It was a bit creepy

because it was an overnight bus journey

and I was the only passenger. So about 3

hours later on the bus, I arrived in Oita.

It was the very last stop. I met the girl,

I went to buy a toothbrush, and we went to

her apartment. We got to the apartment and

we had something to eat and we talked a

bit. She had prepared a bed, a mattress on

the floor for me to sleep in. And I got

ready to sleep and she got into her bed

and we turned off the lights. And then

suddenly she asked me, Daniel, isn't the

floor on the bed— isn't the floor on the

bed— isn't the bed on the floor really

hard? And I said, not really. And then she

said if I wanted to, we could swap beds.

So I said, okay. So I got into her bed and

then she got onto the bed— she got onto—

she got into the bed that was on the

floor. We turned off the lights again and

tried to go to sleep, but then she started

talking again. She said she couldn't sleep

and she was feeling like excited or

nervous, and she said to me, Daniel, can

you show me some pictures of your cats?

So I said, okay. So I sat up in her bed

and she sat next to me on the floor, and

then she started touching my legs, and

then I started touching her back, and then

I think you know what happened next. We

had unprotected sex. So about 2 weeks

later, I started to notice there was

something strange. Every time I went to

urinate, it felt really uncomfortable.

I'm not really sure how to describe it.

It was just really unpleasant. It wasn't

painful, and when I finished urinating, I

still felt like I really wanted to urinate

more even though there's nothing left. I

didn't really think it was much of a

problem, so I just ignored it and I

thought it would go away on its own. And

then about a week later, I started to get

these really painful swellings in my knees

and my elbows. It would just swell up

really big. And I couldn't bend my arm or

my legs properly because it was so

swollen. And around the same time, my

girlfriend was also experiencing these

pains around her bladder area, around her

lower stomach area, and she would just

start screaming in the middle of the

night. It was really scary, and there

wasn't really anything I could do to help

her. So she went to the hospital to get

checked out, and the doctors guessed that

she might have a sexually transmitted

disease. They told her that we should stop

having sex for about a week or 10 days,

and they gave her antibiotics. But we

ended up having sex anyway, and because I

wasn't antibiotics as well. I ended up

reinfecting her and the medicine didn't

help. And it was around this time my hip

joints also got really painful. You know

where the thigh bone connects into the

pelvis? It got so painful that I couldn't

even stand up sometimes. If it was just on

one side, like just the left joint that

was painful, then I could kind of walk. I

could limp along. But there were times

when both joints, the left side and the

right side, were really painful. I

couldn't even stand. When I went to the

toilet, I had to crawl along the floor

because it was so painful. And you know

when you cough or you sneeze, you kind of

tense up your stomach. Every time I

coughed or sneezed, it was really painful

as well because it was like putting stress

onto the joints in the pelvis. And because

I couldn't walk properly and I was limping

around all the time, my girlfriend would

laugh and joke. She said I looked like an

old man, and I found this kind of

irritating because it felt like she didn't

really understand how much pain I was in.

When I was looking on Google to find out

what all this joint pain was about,

actually said that in a small percentage

of men, when they get chlamydia, they also

get like this side symptom where they get—

it's called reactive arthritis. It's where

the chlamydia gets into the joints and

then the body reacts to this by inflaming

the area, causing it to swell up. The

scary thing is, even after you take

medicine, even if you take antibiotics,

you still have the arthritis. It's still

there even 2 years later. Sometimes I

still get the pains in my hip joints.

It's nowhere near as bad as it used to be,

but it's getting less frequent. It

happened a few times last year, and so far

this year it's happened once where I had a

slight pain in my left hip joint. I was

really scared that I was going to have

this arthritis for the rest of my life and

I wouldn't be able to walk properly, but

thankfully it's getting better. It's

getting less and less frequent. I think

that maybe next year I won't even have any

pains. So after the antibiotics failed

because I kept reinfecting her, We decided

to go to Beppu where they have a sex

clinic and we got properly tested. We had

urine samples taken, we had blood samples

taken, and then after we finished taking

all the tests, we went to a sushi place

and I had ramen at the sushi place. And I

also had like this beef sushi, which is

basically just a small piece of beef

burger placed onto a rectangle of rice and

they called it a sushi. It's just a piece

of beef on rice. Anyway, a few days later

we went to get the results and we tested

negative on HIV, which was great. And we

tested positive on chlamydia. And we sat

down at the table, this doctor explained

everything to us. He said we should stop

having sex for about 7 to 10 days again,

which for us is very difficult. And he

gave us a prescription and we went to the

pharmacy and we picked up some

antibiotics. As you may have expected,

yep, we continued having sex, we just used

the condom. We didn't feel like it really

mattered because since we were both on

antibiotics It didn't really matter if the

infection was going backwards and

forwards. So after about a week,

everything was okay. My girlfriend stopped

screaming in the middle of the night. I

stopped having that weird sensation when

urinating. The only problem was that I

still had the joint pains, and I explained

to the doctor at the sex clinic or the

hospital that I was having these joint

pains, and he was just like, oh, don't

worry about it. When you take the

antibiotics, it will clear up. Well, it

didn't. 2 years later, I'm still having

these joint pains. This year I've had the

joint pain for about 1 day, and last year

I had it a few times as well. It was a bit

worse last year, but this year it hasn't

been so bad. It was kind of awkward

because I came home and I was limping

around when I was walking, and my parents

are like, why are you limping? What's

wrong with you? I tried hiding it for a

while, but I just had to tell the truth,

and I told my dad that I had gotten

chlamydia and This was like a side effect

of it. When you tell people you have

arthritis, people don't really believe me

because I look so young, and I am young,

and people don't really associate

arthritis with young people. It's usually

something that old people get. I know it's

completely my fault, and this whole

situation could have been easily avoided

if we had just used condoms, but it's just

so difficult to use condoms when you're

living with your girlfriend and you're

naked all the time and you're just having

constant sex. Even if we had used a condom

in the beginning, we would eventually— we

would have eventually stopped using

condoms and the same thing would have

happened. I didn't expect her to be the

kind of girl who slept around, but she

actually told me that 4 weeks before we

started our relationship, she actually had

a one-night stand with this guy she met at

a nightclub. And I'm guessing that's where

it came from, that that idiot who didn't

use a condom, he gave us chlamydia. I

don't really know what I would do if I

could go back in time and redo it all from

the beginning. I think the same thing

would have happened because I just, I hate

using condoms. It takes away the pleasure

from, of sex so much. And there would have

been no way of telling that she had

chlamydia unless I asked her to get a test

and I asked her to take antibiotics. I

suppose I should have asked her if she had

any sexual encounters recently, but I just

feel really uncomfortable asking that

question. It feels really rude and

inappropriate to just start asking those

kind of things, and she could have lied.

She could have just said no, and I would

have had to believe her. I'm not really

sure what I'm going to do with my current

girlfriend. I actually asked her, when was

the last time you had sex? And she said 2

years ago with her previous boyfriend.

And I've had myself checked about 3 times

now. I decided to take 2 more chlamydia

tests when I got back to England just to

make extra sure that I didn't have

anything and the results came up as

negative, so I'm pretty sure I don't have

anything. Um, I guess I'm just gonna have

to use a condom. I don't know if, if the

pleasure is worth all the pain and the

suffering that I went through. I think

it's just easier to use a condom. The

tricky thing with chlamydia is you don't

get any symptoms until maybe 4 weeks

later, 2 to 4 weeks later. So before then

you don't even know that you have

chlamydia and you end up having sex again

and you end up infecting other people. If

I met that girl maybe 4 weeks later

instead of 4 weeks earlier, then she would

have started having those pains that she

was having and she would have gotten

herself checked out and she would have

found out that she had chlamydia before we

even started the relationship. So I guess

I was kind of unlucky because, because

there wasn't much of a gap between when

she had that one-night stand And when we

started our relationship. So if you really

don't want to use condoms, I think the

best idea would be to get yourself and

your partner checked out, get the test

done, and when your test results come back

as negative, then you can stop using

condoms. So the message of the video is,

guys, just use a condom. It's so much

easier. You don't want to go through the

same pain and suffering that I went

through. It's just not worth it. And

that's the end of the video. I'm gonna

make omelettes now.