Answered Questions

As stated on the Get Checked Online website in the “What can I test for?” section only Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, HIV, Syphilis, Hepatitis C tests are offered.  If you would like to get tested for other kinds of STIs, you will need to visit a clinic or see your doctor.  If you are having any symptoms that are concerning you I would recommend that you to get them checked by a care provider such as a doctor or nurse at a walk-in clinic

Have a look at our Clinic Finder to locate a sexual health clinic in your area.

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Health Nurse

As such, it is unlikely that if you repeat the test that it will be negative. In fact, we often discourage people from testing for herpes using the blood test since it provides very little clinical information and often causes quite a lot of anxiety about a virus that is generally considered to be pretty harmless.

You might find our Herpes: Patient’s Guide helpful for more information.

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Health Nurse

Once antibiotics kill an infection it can take the body 3-4 weeks to actually get rid of the dead bacteria. Some STI tests (specifically the ones for chlamydia and gonorrhea) are so sensitive that they will detect the residual protein from the dead bacteria and report it as positive. This is essentially a “false positive” result, but it often leads to an additional, unnecessary dose of antibiotics if a testing provider doesn’t realize the infection could already have been treated with the previous antibiotics.

I hope this makes sense! If your STI testing was all negative 1 week after the ciprofloxacin, then you don’t need to worry. If something comes back positive on your tests, then I would recommend speaking with your care provider about the possibility of an already-treated infection.

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Health Nurse

What could happen is they have a negative test but end up having an STI (we call this a false negative test). It’s also possible they could have an STI that was not tested for.

The two situations that can come up in regard to testing accuracy are the window period and the quality of the sample. I can give you some example in regard to this. Window period is the time it takes for an STI to show up on a test after it has passed to someone. Say you have a partner who had a previous sex partner and gets a test a couple of days after having sex, in this case their test would be done too soon and most likely would not pick up an STI if one had been passed to them.

Quality of the sample is also another factor, say a test for chlamydia was done but the person had just urinated before doing the test or a swab sample was not taken well enough or from the correct place e.g. a test was taken from the genitals but they actually had the STI in their throat. These examples show how someone can have an STI but a test may have showed a negative result.

The other example is if a test for a certain STI was not done or it’s not possible to do one. For example someone comes into our clinic with no symptoms and gets a routine STI screen. At our clinics a routine screen for someone without symptoms would include gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, HIV and maybe hepatitis (depends on risk and vaccine history). This means that a person could have a common STI like herpes simplex virus (HSV) or human papillomavirus (HPV) and not know it. Currently we have no test available for HPV testing in our clinics. There are HSV blood tests available that can be helpful in certain situations but are not good screening tests so we do not use them for routine STI testing.

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Health Nurse

The concern would be if you came in contact with any vaginal fluids when this happed, I could see that depending were the condom was when it slipped off that your penis may or may not have come in contact with vaginal fluids.

It sounds like you have been really safe with using condoms for vaginal/oral sex and going for STI testing on a regular basis. As it is possible that your penis may have come in contact with vaginal fluid I would recommend going in for a STI test, as this would be like having unprotected vaginal sex in terms of risk. In terms of the chance of something passing this is hard to know as it really depends if the person has an STI in the first place, even if they have an STI it is never 100% that it will pass the one time you have sex.

STI like chlamydia and gonorrhea usually show up in a urine test by 2 weeks so it best to wait at least 2 weeks before getting tested unless you develop symptoms e.g. discharge from penis, hurts when you pee, sores on the penis etc.… Blood tests that check for STI like HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B usually show up by 6 weeks on a test but can take up to 3 months to get a final result.

Given this I would recommend waiting 2 weeks before getting a STI check and then go back at 6 weeks to repeat the blood test. I would also consider getting the hepatitis B vaccine if you have not had it already. We know it can be a stressful for some people when they have to wait to do a test and then wait for the results. If this is happening for you, let us know if you need any help or support during this time.

In terms of using condoms in the future having a condom that fits better (feels comfortable and you can roll it down all the way) can decrease the chance of it slipping off and we also find that some people like using a female condom if they are having a problem with a male condom fitting.

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Health Nurse

Also check out our Know Your Chances charts. They are sometimes useful in understanding which STIs are passed through different types of sexual contact.

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Health Nurse
 

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Health Nurse