Will I soon be seeping?

January 4, 2006 7:57 AM

How long does it take for STD symptoms to appear?

I stupidly had unprotected sex with someone I don't know very well. I will go for testing ASAP, and I don't need a lecture about how incredibly dumb my actions were, but I do want to know how quickly to expect symptoms after exposure to an STD (keep in mind this is only hypothetical, I don't know that I was exposed to an STD at all, and I have no way of contacting the guy to ask if he's been tested recently. And if it matters, I'm a girl.)

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

Depends entirely on what it is.. anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to several months..

Unfortunately, Ask MeFi won't give you the peace of mind you seek. Getting tested will.
posted by twiggy at 8:03 AM on January 4, 2006

Or years, or never.

In the wise words of Mohandes Dewese, go see the doctor.
posted by box at 8:05 AM on January 4, 2006

I would wait a little while and then go get tested for STDs even if there are no symptoms. Wait a few days. If you're worried about HIV, you will have to get tested again in several months, a test this early is unlikely to turn up exposure.

Mostly, though, don't worry about it. You may have made a mistake, but most people (by far) do not have STDs and so you are really at low risk for having contracted something. You'll know when you get tested, and can deal with it then. (Easier said than done, I know.)
posted by OmieWise at 8:21 AM on January 4, 2006

Yes, being a girl makes a difference. There are common STDs that can remain hidden for years, affecting your overall health and destroying your fertility. So the bottom line is: you just can't know. Talk to your doctor and do whatever tests s/he recommends.
posted by frykitty at 8:25 AM on January 4, 2006

You have 72 hours to take the morning after pill, get to a doctor quicker than asap, like, an hour ago. You can always go back in the future for followup testing, and they would certanly know better than the Internet Superfriends as to what timetable you could be looking at for future testing.
posted by Kellydamnit at 9:38 AM on January 4, 2006

And to add... if your doctor can't see you this soon, or you're not comfortable giving them the whole situiation, go to your local Planned Parenthood. They deal with this sort of thing every single day.
posted by Kellydamnit at 9:45 AM on January 4, 2006

Granted, it's from Cosmo, but there's a timeline here. Well, it's "when should I get tested for X" instead of "when would X cause me to break out in sores," but testing seems like a far more pleasant course of action.
posted by needs more cowbell at 10:46 AM on January 4, 2006

You could get PID (pelvic inflammatory disease) and not know it for long enough to become sterile, so yeah, get tested.
posted by deep_cover at 5:11 AM on January 5, 2006

Symptomatic gonorrhea and chlamydia will usually pop up in a week to ten days or so. Syphilis can take rather longer, I understand. What you want to do is:

Now: Get the morning-after pill, just in case. Doing so right now will save you the (potential) heartache of finding out you're pregnant in a few weeks, and having to consider abortion/adoption/keeping.

Two weeks from exposure: Full screen and swabs (oral, vaginal, and probably anal to be on the safe side) for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, Hep A and B, a visual inspection for genital warts, and (hey, while you're at it) a Pap smear if you haven't had one in the last 12 months.

Three months: HIV test, as HIV takes at least six weeks to show up. The awesome folks at the Hassle Free Clinic in Toronto advise three months to cover the seroconversion window period.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:46 AM on January 5, 2006