A friend of mine (female) is going in to get tested for STDs, and has no idea what to expect. I’m sure people here have had experience with this before. Anybody willing to share stories, adding details on the procedures, to help ease her anxiety?
shouldn’t be much worst than a pelvic exam, she ever had them?
Pelvic exam, probably a blood draw, maybe a pap smear, and the doctor will ask about various symptoms and her sexual history - it’s really not that much different than a regular gynecological checkup. Note that the doctor may want her to make a followup appointment to come in to discuss the test results, even if they’re negative. She’ll probably get a little talk about good methods of STD prevention/avoidance too, but most (decent) doctors aren’t judgemental in how they go about it.
Well, they’ll do a pelvic with pap smear and cultures, for starters. The cultures feel pretty much like the swab for the pap smear, so it’s really no big deal. (Quit looking at me that way! I had to have cultures before they’d agree to give me an IUD. ) They’ll probably also send her to the lab to get some blood pulled for HIV testing, but that should pretty much be it.