Full STI screen test for diagnosing STIs

Men and women around the world experience some or the other sexually transmitted infections. The number of people suffering from sexually transmitted infections has increased to a great extent. Sexually transmitted infections can be contracted through unprotected vaginal, oral or anal intercourse. Those who share their sex toys with an infected person increase their risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. It has been observed that men and women who have become sexually active at a younger age, are at a greater risk of developing a sexually transmitted infection. Men and women who have multiple sex partners or tend to change their sex partners on a frequent basis are also at a greater risk of developing sexually transmitted infections.

What are bacterial infections?

Sexually transmitted infections can be either bacterial or viral in nature. Bacterial infections are usually such that people who are infected with one of these, hardly ever experience any symptoms. This quality of these infections makes them difficult to be diagnosed. This adds to the severity of suffering from a sexually transmitted infection as they can further lead to severe health conditions. But in order to diagnose these infections, you can take the cue from the type of symptoms that you experience. Bacterial infections show symptoms such as unusual discharge from your vagina, penis or anus; bleeding after sex; bleeding in-between periods; pelvic or lower abdomen pain; and painful sexual intercourse. If you experience such symptoms, you can take the full STI screen test, which can help in the particular bacterial infection you are suffering from.

What are viral infections?

The viral infections that you can suffer from are such that they cannot be cured completely unlike the bacterial infections. These infections are characterized by short duration of time, during which the virus is active, and long duration of time, during which the virus remains dormant in your body. The two most popular viral infections that people suffer from include genital warts and genital herpes. The symptoms that you can experience on being infected with genital herpes are ulcers or sores around the genitals, anus or groin area; swollen glands; abdominal pain and reddish or dark patches on your skin. The genital warts symptoms that you can experience include single or groups of small growths on and around the genitals. Though these symptoms cannot be cured completely, they can be treated with the help of antivirals.

How to diagnose these infections?

If you have had unprotected sex, then you should wait for at least two weeks after that. This is because a bacterium or a virus takes that amount of time to appear on the test as an infection. If you are unsure as to what infection, whether bacterial or viral, you are suffering from, you can take the full STI screen test. The full STI screen test includes bacterial infections of chlamydia, gonorrhoea, mycoplasma genitalium, non-specific urethritis, ureaplasma, bacterial vaginosis and trachomatis vaginalis. The viral infections that are included under the full STI screen test are genital herpes and the genital warts.

For more information visit the online lab, or visit the STD STI Testing page.