If you're sexually active, then you have an ongoing obligation to protect yourself and your sexual partners. Beyond using condoms and other preventative prophylactics, you also need to engage in routine testing for sexually transmitted diseases. As unpleasant as this may seem, it's really the only way to ensure that you aren't carrying a dangerous illness with symptoms that will continue to spiral out of control the longer the disease remains untreated. Fortunately, it's possible to simplify these efforts with home STD testing. Following are some of the tremendous benefits that this type of screening can provide.
Maintain Your Anonymity With Home STD Testing For many people, the absolute worst part of getting tested for STDs is the likelihood of running into someone they know. This could happen in the waiting room or it may even be an employee of the clinic that's being used. You certainly don't want to express concern about potentially having syphilis, gonorrhea, or chlamydia when being treated by an old, high school acquaintance. With home STD testing, everything is incredibly discreet. Your testing supplies will arrive by mail in a package that's hardly discernible from your other mail. Once you've collected the necessary sample, the kit can be shipped off to a third-party lab for processing, and your results can be privately reviewed online.
Get End-To-End Support With home STD testing, you get all of the privacy you want, while still maintaining access to a trusted team of professionals who can answer any questions you might have. In fact, many of the companies that provide home STD testing kits can even assist you in dealing with positive results. For instance, some companies are aligned with top-rated physicians who can actually prescribe the necessary medications for treatment once a positive test result has been received. Other companies have seasoned counselors on hand who can help you mentally adjust to the idea of having tested positive for a sexually transmitted illness. These professionals can additionally make recommendations for establishing a seamless and effective treatment plan as needed.
Sidestep Embarrassing Questions About Your Sexual Preferences And History Certain sexual preferences and practices can place people at a higher risk of sustaining a sexually transmitted disease. Due to this fact, many doctors and other medical professionals start the screening process by asking a host of very personal questions pertaining to patients' sexual histories, partners, and activities. These questions are incredibly embarrassing, especially when they must be asked and answered in-person. Fortunately, you can sidestep these interviews entirely by opting to perform STD testing at home instead.
Get Fast And Incredibly Accurate Results To many people, home STD testing often seems too good to be true. One of the first drawbacks that many consumers expect these systems to have is a lack of accuracy. The reality, however, is that the same testing methods that are provided in-office can be used right in your home. The laboratories that perform the actual tests can provide results that are 99.9 percent accurate for a vast range of STDs. To ensure accuracy, you simply need to carefully follow the directions for collecting your blood, urine, saliva or stool sample. You also have to complete these tests within an appropriate time-frame. For most diseases, this means waiting two to three weeks after exposure. This gives the body a chance to build up the antibodies that will serve as markers for determining whether or not illness exists. No matter what your concerns may be, there will always be plenty of information and guidance available online for ensuring that everything is done just right and that the testing process has a reliable measure of accuracy.
The Social Implications Of Home STD Testing Home STD testing isn't just beneficial for the individual; it also provides an impressive number of advantages for the greater public. That's because people who are too shy or embarrassed to test for STDs in a public setting have a higher likelihood of receiving regular STD screening if they can do it from the comfort of their own homes. With access to these resources, more people can identify illness and seek necessary treatment before dangerous STDs get passed on to their partners. Moreover, timely treatment can limit the severity of a person's symptoms and the long-term impact that a sexually transmitted illness has on both reproductive and overall health.