Should I Get Tested?

[collegekiwi]

Hello,

Earlier this school year during the months of September to November before thanksgiving break I had a friends with benefits with someone I was not close with at college. I have given him head only once (without protection) in September most likely but we always used a condom during vaginal intercourse and the condom has never failed.

The last time I slept with him was a bit before Thanksgiving break and the morning after, I started to have the symptoms of a UTI. I went to the clinic about three days after I last slept with him to get tested for a UTI along with gonorrhea and chlamydia. I did have a small UTI but I tested negative for gonorrhea and chlamydia.

Just the other day on of my friends was telling me that the person I was with actually had multiple sex partners, although he told me that he was not sleeping with anyone else while he was sleeping with me (the only condition I had to continue the relationship because I did not want to heighten my risks of getting an infection), he could have very well been lying.

My questions are: would a urine test have worked to check for any infection in the throat? Was it too early to test for the infections? Was I still at risk for infection with a condom that stayed on and did not break? Should I get tested again?

I don't want to get tested if I don't have to because I don't have much money to pay for the tests and there is no close Planned Parenthood (I'd have to drive all the way over) and even if there was, the prices that they list are way too high. There is university testing too, but I believe that they charge separately for the Gonorrhea and Chlamydia test. Some of the tests are 45 dollars.


Thank you so much!

[Sam W]

Hi collegekiwi,

The condom would have protected against the two STIs you're concerned about, and a test would have caught an infection regardless of how it was transmitted. As for when the test was taken, did the clinic ask you any screening questions before administering the test?

[collegekiwi]

Yes, the clinic asked me questions about when the last time I had sex was, if it was protected, when my last period was, etc.,
In the end I got tested for a UTI, Chlamydia and Gonorrhea. They tested for those STIs because they said that sometimes they come along with a UTI or sometimes people may be experiencing symptoms of a UTI when it's really an STI.

I'm not too concerned about the vaginal sex because, as I said, I have always used a condom before any contact or sexual behaviour and used the condom correctly. I'm concerned with me going down on him with no condom (something I will never do again, I'll use a condom for that from now on so that I can have safer sex). But I assume that if I'd caught anything from that, it would've shown on the urine test I took because that happened over a month or so after I had done that.

[Heather]

I also just want to add, just for general information, that we're all always at *some* risk of STIs with any kind of sex where they can be transmitted. Condoms and other barriers reduce those risks -- often quite substantially -- but they don't take the risks away. In other words, there's never a "We used a condom so there's no risk." It's always, "We used a condom so there is very little risk." Make sense?

And with testing, really, we just want to do what we can to get regularly tested -- once a year is a good benchmark for most people, unless you are with the same partner for many years, with monogamy being mutual -- or only have a sexual partner once every few years. If and when we believe we may have symptoms of an infection, or may have been at a particularly high risk of developing an infection between the times we usually get tested, then going back in for a check-in -- where new tests may or may not be advised -- is the way to go. But otherwise, just sticking to our regular pattern is usually just fine when people are always using barriers for activities which carry STI risks that require them to reduce those risks (namely, anal or vaginal intercourse and oral sex).

[Heather]

Just saw your new post: since the clinic asked you screening questions, you can rest assured what they chose to test you for was what, from your answers, they felt were the tests you needed. If there were other tests needed based on their questions and your answers, they would have run those.