For exactly the reason I already said: these are limited medical resources, the actual testing kit itself, the time of the doctor/nurse to administer the test, and the time of the lab to analyze the sample. Even if it provided at no cost to him by the public health department, it still takes these valuable resources away from patients who need them more–namely, sexually active people who have cause to think that they are infected. A person who had sex once eight years ago and has not had any symptoms in that time just is not the sort of high-risk or medium-risk or anything other than very-low-risk patient that we should be using these resources on. Your thinking is the very same kind of thinking that promotes people using Claritin when they get the first sign of the sniffles and that’s why prescription drugs in this country are so expensive.
I don’t want to turn this into a health care debate thread, but the inability of health care consumers to match an appropriate course of treatment with the risk they actually face, especially because either an insurance company or the government is the one who gets the bill, is why our health care system is out of control.
Where would it stop? What if he told you it was one episode of oral sex 8 years ago? Mutual masturbation? Should we indulge religiously-induced phobias about sex? That’s where his worry is coming from after all–it is the culmination of so much youth group and VBS horror stories about how premarital sex turns pretty young Christians into terrible, disease-ridden monsters.
Somebody is paying for these tests, and every shits-and-giggles test that gets administered means there is one less test we can run on a high-risk patient.
Testing is not a scarce resource. His insurer is paying for it, so he’s not wasting PP or the county’s resources. Labs and kits are privately sourced. If they need more, they’ll make more.
For the record, I had premarital sex because I was a terrible disease-ridden monster, not the other way around. Women find my snarling visage and pointy talons attractive.
Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit. STD screening is part of their mission and using their service, which may or may not be free or subsidized, is entirely appropriate. That’s private philanthropy at work for its intended purpose. Insurers are certainly not shy about denying coverage and have as part of their business model decided to cover such testing once a year. That’s the private health insurance market at work.
Medical groups such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend that sexually active women in certain age groups get annual screening for STDs. Kimmy_Gibbler, your comments reveal dangerous ignorance about the prevalence and symptoms of STDs.
It is also the opinion of many in the public health community. Gratuitous testing of very-low-risk individuals–people who are getting testing because they issues about sex, not because they have engaged in sexually risky activity–wastes resources. There is not an infinite supply of testing kits, doctors, nurses, and laboratories to reassure every Christian that Jesus is not going to strike them with gonorrhea because they got head in the back of the youth group van when they went to that one Michael W. Smith concert.
OK, hotshots, let’s get to it this way: Once upon a time, eight years ago, I had sex with a girl I went to high school with. Fast forward eight years, no further intercourse and no symptoms whatsoever. Now I have a new lady friend, and I think, “Hmmm…Maybe Big J doesn’t care all that much if I have sex before marriage.” But! I am disinclined to got through the hassle of getting an STD test. Should I refrain from consummating my relationship with this new girlfriend until I do so?
Think back to your own consummations and whether those were preceded by STD testing. Remember! Lies made Baby Jesus cry!
“The CDC also encourages voluntary HIV testing, at least once, as a routine part of medical care if you are an adolescent or adult between the ages of 13 to 64. The CDC advises yearly HIV testing if you are at high risk of infection, for example if you’ve had unprotected sex with more than one sexual partner since your last screening.”
“If you are a sexually active girl or woman under age 24, or a woman older than 24 and at risk of STDs — for example you are having sex with a new partner or multiple partners — get screened annually for gonorrhea and chlamydia.”
“For example, approximately 80 percent of women and 50 percent of men diagnosed with chlamydia don’t have symptoms at the time of diagnosis.”
And even though I generally like the Mayo Clinic, here they follow the annoying prededent of putting the burden of screening primarily on women. What woman is really going to go for “Honey, you should get tested for STDs but there’s really no need for me to get tested”?
I don’t give a goddamn about what makes Baby Jesus cry.
I have never had sex with someone without going through STD testing first.
Not protecting yourself and your significant other by going through basic testing that is recommended to everyone who has been sexually active because you don’t want to tie up resources is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Let’s review the risk factors: One episode of sexual intercourse eight years ago, no symptoms in that time.
Chlamydia is curable with a short course of antibiotics–in the 1% scenario where this one episode of sexual intercourse with a fellow high school student (i.e., not a high-risk person herself, as she likely was not an IV drug user or exchanged sex for drugs).
So our trade off is to use up a kit and tie up the medical staff to prevent an almost-zero chance of the transmission of an STD whose cure with antibiotics is easily accomplished should, astoundingly, he be an asymptomatic carrier of chlamydia.
Not exactly. Men are a bit more likely to get acute symptoms and women are more likely to suffer long-term damage, such as impaired fertility or pelvic inflammatory disease.
Hmm, we pay people who build houses, so I guess there’s no such thing as homelessness. Artificially driving up demand for these kits, because people have hysterical ideas about the riskiness of sexual intercourse (which, in certain circumstances is risky, but two high school kids fucking around and then not displaying any symptoms for eight years is not one of those circumstances), takes these kits, which are finite in number, away from poor, high-risk people who do need them.
While those are some of the main risk factors for HIV in women, chlamydia is way more prevalent, because it is more easily transmissible. Can you even get chlamydia from IV drugs? I’m pretty sure it’s skin-to-skin contact. Chlamydia trachomatis - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
The potentially serious consequence of failing to get tested is that both partners will remain asymptomatic for a long time, while the woman’s reproductive system is damaged from long-term effects, described here Chlamydia trachomatis - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
Apparently it can even cause blindness if it spreads to the eye. That I didn’t know.
Don’t take medical advice from someone who apparently wasn’t even paying attention in health class.
Cheap shot, HtS, maybe if you were paying attention in health class, you’d have recalled that one of the biggest risk factors for any STD is infection with another STD or risk factors associated with co-infection.
But also, I notice you have evaded all the questions I’ve put to you so far. Because I’m certain you’re only an honest broker of reasonable health information, do answer them for me.
To wit, would you advise a person in the OP’s shoes who wanted to have sex but did not want to get tested to forbear from sexual activity until such time as he does get tested? Have you adhered to this principle in your own sexual life? Does it matter that the treatment for the supposed danger of asymptomatic chlamydia is azithromycin, 1 gram oral as a single dose, especially compared to your recommended (not socially costless) battery of STD tests?
Get tested twice… if possible from two different sources. If you test positive, go to a regular doctor and have them test you again.
Some health care workers are like carpenters, they see every problem as a nail.
“Oh you have sore on your penis. That’s herpes. Here’s a prescription.”
“What? That didn’t work? Here’s more.”
Regular doctor: “Yeah… that doesn’t look like herpes. I’ll get full blood work done on you just in case.”
“Yeah… whatever that is, it isn’t an STD. You’re clean. Go see the dermatologist.”
Ad hominem and wholly irrelevant. Your transparent intent is to criticize either a yes as overly cautious or a no as hypocritical.
The medical folks would agree that his female partner should get tested. While medical opinion might be mixed based on the facts of the OP’s case, I doubt any of them would advise him not to get tested if he sought testing. And any woman with a lick of sense is going to insist that the man get tested, too.
At this point he has purchased insurance that will cover the testing and is completely within his rights to use it. He would also be within his rights to use a nonprofit provider or to pay cash. Your proposal to solve the healthcare crisis through reduced STD testing is interesting.
OK, to make it crystal clear, please confirm that the following is your position on the matter:
Every single person who has just one sexual episode with a fellow low-risk high school student eight years ago, and who, in those eight years, presents with no symptoms of STDs, is nevertheless obligated to refrain from sexual activity until a battery of STD tests reveal that he is not infected with an STD. This includes the expensive and week-long test for HIV.