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Yes, and stopping and restarting is normal rather than a failure. There is a proper way to do each though, which is why it is a conversation with the clinic rather than a decision made alone.
Restarting in particular involves a period before you are protected, and testing beforehand, so it is not simply resuming tablets on the day.
Ask a pharmacist, because the interval depends on the product and getting it wrong wastes the second dose.
The principle is the same across all of them: the second application targets lice that hatched from eggs the first one did not kill, so it is timed to fall after hatching and before the new lice can lay.
Completely normal. It’s one of the reasons routine screening exists at all. A lot of people carry it with nothing to notice, which is exactly why it spreads.
You didn’t miss a sign. There wasn’t one to miss.
The genuinely time critical item is HIV post exposure prophylaxis if the situation warrants it, and that window is measured in hours rather than days. If that is a possibility, contact a sexual health service or an emergency department now rather than tomorrow.
Emergency contraception, if relevant, is the other thing that gets better the sooner it happens.
Worth taking the result back to whoever ordered it and asking what they think it means in your specific case. Ordered without symptoms it’s a different conversation from a swab taken from an actual lesion, which is the test that tells you something concrete.
Partly luck and partly that the per act risk is lower than most people assume. Studies of couples where one partner has it and the other does not show transmission rates over a year that are much lower than people expect, and lower again with suppressive treatment and condoms.
Long stretches without transmission are common rather than remarkable.
Bleeding between periods and after sex is a recognised symptom of chlamydia, coming from inflammation of the cervix. So it is a plausible connection rather than a coincidence.
What matters is whether it settles after treatment. Bleeding that continues well after a completed course is worth going back about rather than waiting out.
It is possible, and it is not far fetched. Syphilis spreads through contact with an infectious sore, and sores can occur in the mouth and on the lips.
It is uncommon relative to sexual transmission, but deep kissing with someone who has an oral lesion is a recognised route.
Programmes in a lot of countries are now gender neutral, and the reasoning is straightforward. HPV causes anal, penile and throat cancers in men, and throat cancers associated with HPV have been rising, particularly in men.
So it is not only about protecting future partners, though it does that too.
On the symptom checking, that’s the part that got me too. I convinced myself of three different things in one week. Nothing you feel is going to be more informative than the test, and the test is already booked.
If the anxiety itself is the problem, and mine was, say so at the appointment. They deal with this constantly.
There are alternative regimens for exactly this situation and they are set out in the guidelines. They are used less often, so a clinician may need to look them up, which is normal rather than worrying.
A test of cure is generally recommended when a non first line regimen is used, because the evidence base behind the alternatives is thinner.
The clear fertility associations are with chlamydia and gonorrhoea, through tubal damage. Trichomoniasis is not in the same category.
It is associated with pregnancy complications and with increased susceptibility to HIV, which are the two associations worth knowing, and both are reasons to treat it.
Same day start is now standard practice in many places, and it is based on evidence that earlier treatment leads to better outcomes and that delays often become long delays.
It is an offer rather than a demand. Asking for a few days to absorb the diagnosis is legitimate and clinicians will not refuse it.
It doesn’t always mean bad. My clinic calls whenever anything needs treating in person or whenever they want to talk through partner notification, and both of those cover a lot of ground including things that are cured with one course of antibiotics.
Thursday is a horrible wait, I know. The one thing I’d say is go in with a notepad. I remembered almost nothing of what I was told the first time.
Ask a pharmacist or your clinic rather than deciding from the leaflet. Some of the topical options are considered suitable in pregnancy and some are avoided, and the oral option is generally not used.
This is exactly the question pharmacists answer well and quickly.
A rising titre after treatment is taken seriously and it generally means one of two things: reinfection, or treatment that did not work.
It is assessed rather than assumed, and the questions they will ask are about sex since treatment and about whether you completed the course.
HPV infection itself is not an obstacle to fertility treatment and does not affect fertility in the way the bacterial infections can.
Where it can matter is if you have had, or need, treatment to the cervix, because excisional procedures are associated with some obstetric risks later. That is a conversation worth having in advance.
The pattern is also in the literature rather than only in anecdotes: recurrence rates decline over the years following the first episode, on average. Individual variation is wide, which is why year one advice feels hollow when you are in it.
Testing in men is less sensitive than in women, so a negative result in him would not be reliable enough to act on. Treating known contacts is the standard approach for that reason.
It is pragmatic rather than unscientific: the cost of treating someone who turns out not to have it is low, and the cost of missing it is you being reinfected.
A blip is a single low level detectable result with undetectable results either side of it. They are common, they are usually not a sign of treatment failure, and they often have no identifiable cause.
What matters is the next result. A pattern of rising numbers is a different situation from a single low one.
Five weeks and painless is worth getting looked at, and the reading you have done is pointing in a reasonable direction. Oral chancres exist and they are painless and persistent.
There are also other causes of a persistent painless oral lesion that need excluding, and that is the stronger reason to go.
Recurrence within the first few months after treatment is common and is usually the virus in surrounding skin producing new lesions, not the old ones coming back.
That is not a failure of the treatment. It is what treatment of visible lesions can and cannot do.
Reinfection is common and there is no lasting immunity after an episode, so having had it gives you no protection against having it again.
Nothing is wrong with you. The usual explanations are an untreated partner, going back to sex too early, or a new exposure.
The practical test is finding no live lice about a week after the final treatment. Empty egg shells stuck to hair are not evidence of ongoing infestation and can be ignored or combed out.
Residual itch for a week or two afterwards is expected and is not a sign of failure.