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Panels...why the distinction?
Everybody wants certainty. Everybody wants to be
sure. Everybody wants to close the case. So, how
do you go about selecting the best test for your
situation?
Your exposure history, the time interval from
exposure, the presence or absence of symptoms,
your personal emotional and intellectual make
up, the funds you have available for testing,
all are important factors which play a role in
deciding what tests to take. Of all the factors,
two are most important:
1) whether or not you have symptoms.
2) the time of exposure (when do you think you
might have been infected).
If you have
symptoms of any sort you should definitely
consider seeing a Physician who will take your
history in detail and examine the area and order
appropriate testing. You can, however, while
waiting for your appointment, obtain your
testing through us and bring your report with
you at the time of your visit. We have
distinguished our Panels according to exposure
times of less than 4 months and more than 4
months.
We have done this:
1)
to offer you some
conclusive answers when urgency to know is
important.
2)
to make you aware
that some of your questions can only be answered
after a certain amount of time from the date of
exposure.
3)
to avoid the
expenses of retesting. Most of STD tests are
antibodies tests (ELISA methodology) and they
look for the presence in your blood of
antibodies for the particular kind of bacterium
or virus which is under scrutiny.
The appearance of
antibodies in someone's blood (becoming
Seropositive from a prior condition of being
Seronegative) is a process which has different
timing in different people and may vary, for
most of the STD's, from 2-3 weeks to 4-5 months.
For instance, few people may seroconvert for HIV
antibodies within 2-3- weeks, the majority
(90-95%) within 2-3 months and no one is known
to produce antibodies after 6 months. The
situation is very similar for Hepatitis and
Herpes infections. Other methodologies can be
used to shorten the waiting time such as
Cultures and DNA/RNA amplification where you do
not look for your body response but for the
presence of the bacterium or viruses themselves
or their genetic material. This can shorten the
waiting time significantly down to 2-3 days in
situation such as Chlamydia and Gonorrhea and to
28 days in HIV infection. However, is always a
good idea to retest for antibodies 4-6 months
after exposure. |
