Share your story

Do you have experiences about being tested for sexually transmitted infections that you would be willing to share with others? Concerns? Triumphs? Challenges?

Please send your stories to us at info@ashastd.org and we'll post them on our site.

ASHA sincerely appreciates all submissions and each is confidential and anonymous. It is ASHA's intent to collect these comments for use in our patient advocacy work. All submissions are property of ASHA and can be edited for length and clarity. Due to the large volume of e-mails, we regret we cannot provide a response to each submission. If you are seeking information, referrals or materials, please visit ASHA's message board .

While we will soon share some stories from our site visitors, we'd like to kick off with a story from ASHA's President and CEO on her experince getting tested.
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ASHA has urged countless individuals to take the initiative and talk with their healthcare providers about sexual health. Our message is: Anyone can be at risk for STIs. Be smart. Have the conversation. Get tested.

Great advice. And I've never followed it.

I know better but have never felt the personal need to have the same conversation with my health care provider – or most of the tests – that we routinely urge for others. What do my staff and I really know of the anxiety provoked by “peeing in a cup” if we've never done it? So one of my ASHA senior staff members and I headed to a clinic where we each peed in a cup and gave up a little blood. Then we waited for our test results for chlamydia, HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B and C, gonorrhea, and herpes simplex virus 1 and 2.

Here we were, two seasoned professionals who work in the field of sexual health everyday, and the idea of getting tested was not without a bit of nervous giggling. What would the clinic staff think, having us tested for eight different infections? Would they silently (or perhaps not so silently…) judge us? What if? What if?

Soon, our test results were available. The wait almost unhinged my ASHA buddy – a veteran who's been in the field 12 years and has more than a clue about STIs and his relative risk - who both compulsively checked the site to see if his results were back and declared he was throwing away his PIN because he'd rather not know.

We did this to better understand what it's like for those who follow our recommendations to get tested for STIs, and the process certainly educated us. As unnerving as testing can be even for people well versed in this area, this experience drove home how difficult it might be for someone who isn't as savvy.

I did it. I peed in a cup! Have you?

--Lynn Barclay, ASHA President and CEO