How long does it take for an STD to appear in an STD test after you've contracted it?

[Seantn]

The other night I hooked up with a female friend of mine. We didn't have sex, but she gave me oral.

We go to the same college. About a year ago I hung out with her quite a bit over the course of a month. She seemed like a good person, that's why we went out the other night.

Unfortunately I have heard from many people (after I hooked up with her) that she gets around A LOT. Apparently she has quite a reputation. I probably wouldn't have gone near her had I known that.

My question is, I'm definitely going to get tested for all STD's sometime in the future because of this. Is there an average amount of time where if an STD doesn't show up in a blood test or swab test, that it means you don't have it. This includes all diseases (herpes, HIV, gonnorhea, etc...). In other words, if nothing showed up in half a year, or a full year later, and nothing showed up, would that pretty much mean that I didn't catch anything?

I wasn't sure if STD's show up in a test fairly quickly, or if they won't show up if it's only been a few months.

[Gasspasser]

It could show up at any time. More than likely it will not show up within the first week or so. Depending on what she has (if anything) it could be years. HIV or Hep C or B might take a while to show up. For example, HIV will probably show up in your blood within three months. The difficult thing here is that there is NO UNIVERSAL STD test. Meaning that if you dont know what you might have they will have to do a lot of tests.

Because of this, the best thing for you to do is go to the person that you were with and tell them that you were wondering when her last STD tests were done. Dont be mean or say that you heard that they have been involved a lot, just express your concerns that you had an unprotected sexual encounter and you have been thinking about what the concequences might be. If she has never been tested encourage her to go. Maybe you both can go together.

No matter what she says make an appointment with your primary care physician to talk about it. They will run some tests now as a baseline and then set up a schedule to be tested to see if you develop anything over time.

As I said earlier, check to see what she has. If you both get tested for the first time and it turns out that she has something they will start treating you right now. For example, If she has HIV or Hep they will start giving you agressive anti-viral treatments right now with the hopes of killing it before it has a chance to replicate a lot.

If you have any questions I will try to answer them for you and if I dont know the answer I am sure I can find it for you. One last thing, you said that you are still in school. Go to your health center, here at Illinois we provide all STD testing for students FREE. It is likely that your school has the same thing.

Hope that helps

[Gallant Pig]

Talk to T-Ball.