Results and treatment
The results of your STI test are ready within a week. The GGD clinic usually sends you a text message. Or you can look at the results online. You have to phone your own doctor to get test results.
Is it an STI?
The result will be negative or positive. Negative means that you don’t have an STI. Positive means that you do have an STI.
You don’t have an STI
Then you won’t need any treatment. Use condoms when you have sex. Then you’re less likely to get an STI. +
You do have an STI
Then you will usually be given treatment. That should get rid of the symptoms. Or help them to heal.
HIV test result
Your doctor will discuss the result of an HIV test with you.
Treatment
You have chlamydia
Your doctor or the GGD clinic will give you pills. After a week, the infection will have gone.
You have genital warts
Warts on your vagina, penis or anus usually go away by themselves. If they bother you, you can have them treated. That doesn’t always get rid of them. And sometimes they’ll come back. You can then usually have them treated again.
You have herpes
Herpes goes away by itself. If it bothers you, you can get treatment. The symptoms may come back. Because the virus stays in your body.
You have gonorrhoea
Your doctor or the GGD clinic will give you an injection in your buttocks. After a week, the infection will have gone.
You have HIV
You’ll be treated for HIV at a hospital. The sooner you start, the better. Then you won’t get ill. And you won’t be able to pass HIV on to anyone else. You cannot be cured of HIV. But if you stay on the treatment, you can live a normal, healthy life.
You have hepatitis B
Hepatitis B usually goes away by itself within 6 months. But sometimes it doesn’t. You can be given treatment to reduce the damage it does to your body.
If you have hepatitis B, then the people you regularly have sex with, and people you live with, should get vaccinated against hepatitis B. Then you cannot pass it on to them.
You have syphilis
Your doctor or the GGD clinic will give you 1 or 2 injections in your buttocks. Sometimes you might have to go back twice for 2 more injections. The injection contains medicines and an anaesthetic.
Your own doctor will often give you the injection themselves. Sometimes they will send you to a hospital or GGD clinic.