Who and When Should Be Tested for STD?

Anyone who is sexually active may be tested. As number of sexual partners grow so does the risk of contracting STI. Anal intercourse carries higher risk of STI transmission.

HIV screening is recommended annually for all high risk populations. Pregnant women are also recommended to have HIV testing. Syphilis is on the rise in US cities again.

Most common symptoms of the STD is no symptoms at all.

Chlamydia infection is commonly found during routine GYN testing because patient can have absolutely no symptoms. Yet left untreated, chlamydia can lead to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) and fertility problems later on. The test for chlamydia can be done on urine, hence is very convenient. Testing the urine is very close to the accuracy of testing the cervical / vaginal sample. All Partners of chlamydia positive person have to be tested / treated as well.

STD Medications

Most common STDs are treated with just single dose of antibiotics

Is STD Curable?

The answer depends on the individual sexually transmitted disease. Some area easy to get rid of other are here to stay forever.Except for rare cases of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea and chlamydia most episodes are treated with single dose of antibiotics.Herpes stays in dormant stasis inside the neurons (nervous system cells) indefinitely. When immune system is weak Herpes virus flares back up. Recurrences are limited to same dermatome (skin area) as the initial infection.

Should I Come Back For Test Of Cure?

Routine post-treatment testing is not recommended but sometimes necessary to make sure that infection has cleared.There are always exceptions to the rule. For example when contacts / partners are not treated property and risk of reinfection is high.

STD Counseling

Sometimes, being informed means being protected

Should You Get Tested For Herpes?

Herpes is a virus that re mains in the body forever after initial infection. It tends to live in the nerve cells and tends to reactivate (start multiplying) with certain periodicity dependent on many factors.

There are 2 different Herpes (HSV) virus types

type 1 which is found in 70% of cold sore cases (Herpes Labialis) and 30% of genital herpes cases.
type 2 which is found in 30% of cold sore cases, and 70% of genital herpes (reverse of type 1 naturally).

There are 2 different types of Herpes (HSV) tests.

Blood test that looks for antibody that our immune system is producing to fight the virus
Tissue sample based test that is detecting the presence of the virus in the wound via culture or PCR.

Blood Herpes tests are divided to early phase (IgM) and late antibodies (IgG).

HSV IgM test turn positive within weeks of body’s first encounter with the virus. This test fades to negative within 3-6months of the initial infection.
HSV IgM test turn positive weeks to months after body encounters the virus for the first time. This test remains positive forever.

So should we use these many Herpes tests in clinical practice?

Most people want to know if they have herpes by doing blood test. But given the information above we can see that it would be very difficult to interpret the test!

Scenario 1: This is most common scenario where IgG (late phase) antibody for either HSV-1 or HSV-2 is positive. In this case we know that the body has encountered the virus sometime in the past. We cannot tell if it was genital herpes or cold sore. since cold sores are much more common we can imply it was a cold sore but we may not know for sure.

Scenario 2: All blood based HSV antibody tests are negative. This pattern is helpful since we can conclude that the individual has not encountered HSV virus yet. This, however, happens rarely as most American by age 39 have already encountered the HSV virus.

Scenario 3: Early Phase IgM HSV test is positive. Which tells us the body has encountered the HSV virus sometime between 2weeks and 3months ago. And we cannot tell if the infections was genital or oral.

Scenario 4: Tissue sample was taken from a suspicious lesion and test came back positive for HSV. In this case we can tell with certainty that person has HSV infection and we also know where that infection is.

Whatever the issue may be… don’t worry. Talk to us!