My wife had an ongoing affair which ended in May. I was tested at the end of July for HIV/STD and all 7 results came back negative. Should I re-test at a later date (70 days had passed) and should she be tested as well? Thank you.

Hi kohokoho,

Thanks for the post. With HIV, it's usually recommended to wait at least three months after the last potential exposure to test (to give antibodies a chance to develop in detectable quantities), and blood tests for herpes are usually ok 12-16 weeks after exposure. Chlamydia and gonorrhea testing should also be good within the timeframe you mentioned.

Syphillis blood tests should be done no sooner than three months after a risky encounter. Blood work for Hepatitis B is generally reliable within 9 weeks (most will test accurately in about 4 weeks). Sometimes Hep C is also tested for (usually if the partner is diagnosed, rather than a general "what if?" screening), and the window here is around three months.

Keep in mind the amount of time it takes for a test to be accurate can vary, and many of the tests mentioned above can still be reliable even if one tests more quickly that what is recommended. Conversely, in some cases people don't have detectable antibody levels for longer than you would expect (this can, rarely, occur with HIV). Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about the accuracy of any of the tests you had, including the specific time frame involved.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Fredo

ps Your account looks like it's not working - email forums@ashastd.org if you need help.

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Thanks so much for the assistance. What I guess I am asking since it has only been 75 days should I be re-tested after 90 days - or later? Also, my wife has not been tested as of yet, should she be tested as well (i.e. can she carry a disease which I might as of yet even though we have been sexually active since her affair)? Should she wait until later to be tested? Thanks again.

And are the STD's that women can carry that would not affect a man - or can one person be a carrier and the other person not be infected, at least right away. Thanks again.

Yes, you should probably be retested after the 90-day mark, because, as Fredo mentioned, it sometimes takes up to that long for certain infections to show up in your system.

As for infections that only affect one partner, HPV is a really good example. Low-risk HPV, or genital warts, often are not large enough to see, so they can be passed from partner to partner without one knowing.

High risk HPV, the virus that leads to cervical cell changes and can lead to cancer, generally only affects women. Men can carry it, but there is no widely available or cost-effective method to test men. In extremely rare cases, it can cause penile cancer, and can cause anal cancer at times. Your wife can be tested for high risk HPV if she is over 30 or if she is under 30 and has an abnormal Pap smears. She should get Pap smears every year, unless her healthcare provider tells her otherwise.

Hope this helps to answer your questions. If not, ask again and we'll try to clear it up!

Thank you for the insight - does that mean my wife should be tested as well if my results were negative?

I always recommend that the person originally exposed be tested. If she had contracted any sexually transmitted infection (STI), there is a small possibility that it was NOT passed on to you via sexual contact, so she could still be carrying an STI and not know it.

Should she be tested? Well, it's up to her and her healthcare practitioner, but she needs to consider whether or not the sex was protected and the likelihood of that partner being a carrier of any infections. Many STIs have no symptoms or take a long time for symptoms to appear, so a visit to her OB-GYN or local women's health clinic or county health department would not be a bad idea.