Hi

Events like this can cause a lot of worry. You haven’t said it, but it sounds like you are concerned about HIV, let me know if I got that wrong. If you went to the HIM clinic in Vancouver I am guessing that they would have done the HIV pooled NAAT test for you, at 23days it would be unusual for the pooled NAAT not to pick up HIV if it was there. If they did the 4th generation HIV test (the standard test you get at your doctor’s office) the window period for this test is 95% accurate by 6 weeks and would give you a final result by 3 months. 

There would be no chance of passing an STI from your genitals to your girlfriend after 6-7hrs. After this amount of time you would need to develop the infection yourself before being able to pass it on, this would take at least a couple of days for things like gonorrhea and longer for other STI.

I am unsure what other tests they did for you, your medical history and who was the person you had sex with. Given this I can just give you some general information and suggestions. STI like chlamydia will be much more common, so I would make sure you had testing to cover gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis and HIV. If you are vaccinated against hepatitis B there is no need to worry about this. Most gonorrhea and chlamydia would show up in a urine test by 2 weeks and most syphilis would show up in a blood test by 6 weeks. We have already discussed the HIV test and this depends on what HIV test you had at HIM.

Even if someone had an STI it is never 100% that it would pass the first time you had sex. It also seems like this was a one-time event for you which also means there is much higher odds of you not having an STI than having one. Regardless we know this can cause a lot of stress. Going forward I would find out what tests you did and then find out the window period of those tests from the person you speak with and if any follow up is needed. If the nurse at HIM said you are fine after the results of a particular test I would go off of that information. The nurses at HIM have excellent knowledge in this area, know which test was done and all your sexual/medical history.

I don’t know if this will happen for you, but it is common for us to see people still worried about STI even though all of the tests come back negative and they were tested after the window period. We find this worry can be related to strong feelings of shame, guilt etc.… If you find this is happening for you it can be really helpful to come to one of our clinics and chat with someone or even chat with us online. Also have a look at our worry page for additional information on this topic.

Let us know if you have any more questions or concerns.

Health Nurse