My story and some advice from someone with a medical background 

This is a post I always hoped I’d get to make. I found out from a Mycoplasma Test that I contracted mgen in early February of this year and had a series of treatment failures. Finally, I cleared myself of Mgen just weeks ago after 5 months of effort. I thought I’d post about my experience with STD Tests and symptoms for others to read and hopefully gain some insights into what to expect and how to approach MGen, not only because of my experience but also because of my background.

I’m an Australian doctor who, unfortunately, contracted it from a former partner. It should be obvious now that many doctors don’t know of men. I’m a junior surgical doctor and have never heard of it again. However, I have learned about mycoplasma in the context of other systems (i.e. respiratory). Nonetheless, I have a fairly good knowledge of antibiotics and an entry-level understanding of infectious diseases. I’ll lay this out for everyone.

Initial episode: My symptoms developed about one week after first having unprotected sex. Most were white discharge and a little bit of stinging on urination (dysuria)

Treatments:

February – Ceftriaxone infection and Azithromycin

I requested this as it is empirical therapy in aus for urethritis covering gonorrhoea and chlamydia. I had an exam before this that was negative.

One week later, symptoms kicked back up; I was confused. I rang the clinic and asked for 7 days doxy, knowing this was an alternative treatment for urethritis (I should have been more suspicious here)

Again, STD symptoms subsided and returned within 4 to 5 days. Now, I have conducted aggressive research and come across mgen. I spoke with my GP (not the original doctor who tested me) and said I was concerned this was the case. She had heard of it as most Australian GPS should have. Mycoplasma Swab Tested – positive and yes macrolide-resistant. She gave me 14 days of moxie as if it was PID. I was happy to take this l, as I’ve seen many people treated with spunk, but more later.

Three days after the moxi was finished, the white discharge returned. I had pretty much clear discharge the whole time.

Since then:

Now I’m panicked, and I did what I recommend to all people diagnosed with MGen again. I rang a sexual health clinic for a mycoplasma home kit. These people are absolute experts in this field and were fantastic. I’m very fortunate as doctors usually see each other quickly as a professional courtesy. Hence, I was probably on the phone explaining my situation to a doctor within 20 minutes of my call. I’d read all the literature to know what was coming.

Seven days doxycycline followed by 10 days doxycycline with pristinamycin. This quelled my symptoms completely by probably day 14. I finished and went almost to my TOC with no symptoms. On day 19, I woke up and banged a white discharge. I got an STI Urine exam for Mycoplasma, and it was still positive. This fucking broke my heart. I was devastated.

My doctor asked me to come in. I took the STD Full Panel test again, and it was positive. We had a long discussion about future treatment but also my mental health. It’d been 4 months. I was really sad. Then, the next treatment.

Treatment history:

Minocycline 21 days – doxy 7 days, then doxy plus sitafloxacin 7 days

35 days of antibiotics. These were the next two treatment options, so I wanted to take them sequentially. At day 35, I still had clear discharge, I thought I was fucked.

Slowly but surely, the discharge began to disappear. I had this terrible habit of checking my urine for mucus strands (a new topic). They were always there.

My TOC – 3 weeks and one day after finishing treatment, I went for my TOC and got another Mycoplasma test. I hadn’t had any discharge in a while, but there was still one strand in my urine when I gave my first pass urine (I held in for four hours for this)

I was weirdly confident it would be negative just from reading stories. And it was. It’s been 2.5 weeks since then, and I have no symptoms. I think about it more often but never have any discharge, and I truly think it’s over now.

Some thoughts and advice I have just from looking at other people’s posts:

  1. See a sexual health specialist if you can and follow the MSHC guidelines. Especially If you’re Australian.
  2. In Australia, Urology is a surgical speciality, so I don’t know why anyone sees urology or even a gyn for this problem – mycoplasma is more of an infectious disease.
  3. There’s no real evidence for extended regimes, but yes, people are right in that “it can’t hurt” I was guilty of asking for an extra week of minocycline.
  4. Getting floxed – this is a huge topic. When I worked in infectious disease, we had patients on 6 weeks of grit, and they never had any symptoms. I’ve never actually had a patient have any side effects. I understand some people have, and yes, they can be bad. However, most people DO NOT have severe side effects outside of nausea and vomiting. Remember, people on Reddit usually have had poor outcomes and feel desperate (I.e. me), so they do not reflect the general treatment population.
  5. Just keep the faith; men have never been untreatable, and it does clear by itself eventually. The real task is that in some countries, getting access to Mycoplasma Test kits from an STD clinic or laboratory is the minimum. And then treatment can be so difficult. I’m very lucky that Australia probably has one of the best, if not the best, healthcare in the world (I know I’m biased). I had access to all these drugs and never paid a cent for pasta or sita.

Comments:

I’ll occasionally check in for those with questions, but I can’t see myself checking this page as often as I once did. I want to thank this subreddit’s founders, as I found it useful mainly for the anecdotes about other people’s STD lab Test issues and the progression of the symptoms.