Hi

As most STI will have no symptoms it can be really hard to know if somebody has an STI. In many cases the person has no symptoms so they don’t even know themselves.

I don’t know your sexual or medical history but I can give you some general information.

It’s best to wait at least 2 weeks before getting tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia. This can be tested from the urine or a swab (throat, vagina, rectum).

With the blood tests it is common to test for syphilis and HIV. Both of these tests can take up to 3 months to give you a final result, but they do have a high degree of accuracy by 6 weeks.

With this it would be good to wait at least 2 weeks before going to the clinic and then to also do some follow up blood tests at either 6 weeks or 3 months. Just talk with the health provider who is ordering the tests and they will recommend what tests would be best to do and when.

If you get any symptoms that you think may be related to an STI like pain when urinating (peeing), discharge from penis, sores or rashes in genital area go to the clinic straight away.

Also have a look at our “STIs at a glance” chart, it provides information on what symptoms to look for and how long you need to wait before getting tested (window period).
 

Please leave a comment to let us know if this answers your question or if you need more information.

Health Nurse

For other readers, please feel free to leave a comment, or let us know if this was helpful.