Chase Brexton Health Care’s Sexual Health Clinic recently marked its first anniversary of offering sex-positive sexual health services to the Baltimore community.
Based at Chase Brexton’s Mt. Vernon Center (1111 North Charles Street, Baltimore) the CDC-funded, nurse-led clinic employs a unique model aimed at providing easy access to testing, treatment, prevention, and contraception resources.
In their first year of service to the community, the Clinic’s staff encountered many commonly-asked questions about the conditions they treat and their services. We asked the clinic’s registered nurses Shanna Dell, Stephanie Law, and Trent Swiekatowski to share a few of these questions and the answers!
Q: What is an STI? What is an STD? What is the difference?
A: The terms “sexually transmitted infections (STIs)” and “sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)” are often used interchangeably but are slightly different. The term “infection” refers to any infectious agent that is in the body—whether they cause symptoms or not—and “disease” usually refers to infections that have led to symptoms. Because STIs often don’t have symptoms, we tend to use the term “STI” in our clinic. There are many STIs, but the ones that are most common and the ones we routinely test for include chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV.
Q: What are the common symptoms of STIs?
A: STIs often don’t have any symptoms, which is why it is important to get tested regularly, especially if you have sex with multiple sexual partners or your partner has multiple sexual partners. When symptoms are present, the most common ones are genital pain/itching, genital rash/ lesions, vaginal/penile discharge, and/or pain/itching with urination.
Q: Why should I get tested for gonorrhea/ chlamydia at multiple sites on my body?
A: You can get gonorrhea/chlamydia at any site you use for sex (genital, anal, oral), and may not get an STI at all sites at the same time, so you should provide a sample from any site you use for sex every time you get tested. The samples include a small swab for oral and receptive anal sex, and either a vaginal/ front hole swab or urine sample for genital sex. The swabs are a lot smaller than most things people put in these places during sex, so don’t be scared of the swab! Many clinics even let you do this yourself.
Q: How often should I come in for testing?
A: That is really going to depend on your sexual practices, and we are happy to discuss it with you! You should come in any time you have a known exposure to an STI or potential symptoms of an STI. For routine testing, you usually don’t need to come in more often than every three months, even if you have multiple partners. If you have one monogamous partner or use protection every single sexual encounter (including with oral sex), you probably only need to get tested once a year. Insurance companies may also charge you if you are testing too frequently, and some of these tests are not cheap, unfortunately.
Q: Can I get an STI from a toilet seat, swimming pool, wrestling match, etc.?
A: You cannot get an STI from a toilet seat! If we had a dollar for every time we heard that…we could provide unlimited lube! You can get STIs from having unprotected sex (including oral sex), sharing toys without barriers or not cleaning them properly between use or partners, and…that is pretty much it. Also for those of us with vaginas/front holes, remember that sex can aggravate bacterial vaginosis (BV) or yeast, but these are not STIs and can have other causes.
Q: How soon after unprotected sex should I get tested?
A: If you have a particular sexual encounter you are worried about and aren’t having symptoms, you should wait two to four weeks to get tested. This is because it may take time after exposure for a test to turn positive, so testing within that initial period after exposure may produce a false negative result. For gonorrhea and chlamydia this initial period is two weeks, for syphilis it is one to three months, and for HIV it is two to five weeks depending on which test is used. If you are having symptoms though, don’t wait.
Q: Should I get blood testing for herpes?
A: We do not offer this testing at our clinic and don’t recommend it. Blood testing is inaccurate and doesn’t tell us much that we can respond to. If you have possible symptoms of herpes, you should go to a clinic that can swab the site to see if it really is herpes, this is the best way to test. If you don’t have herpes symptoms, then there is nothing to swab so nothing to test.
Our clinic can provide routine STI testing and treatment as well as some known exposure and symptom-based treatments. We also offer other sexual health services, including starting people on HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), doxy PEP for STI prevention, and contraception. And of course, everyone who visits our clinic has access to our sexual health supplies including period supplies, internal and external condoms, lube, dental dams, and whatever else we may have on hand during their visit!
Get in, get (testing, treatment, prevention, contraception), get out, get it on!
For more information about Chase Brexton’s Sexual Health Clinic, visit chasebrexton.org/sexualhealth.