second_tuesday
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Ask the clinic what they have and why they are recommending what they are recommending. That is a perfectly reasonable question and you will get a straight answer. Just do not decline effective treatment while you wait for something else to arrive.
Worth saying clearly that daily tablets have not worked for you. That is exactly the situation long acting options were designed for and it changes the conversation from preference to clinical need.
Itching that is markedly worse at night is more typical of scabies. Scabies also spreads beyond the pubic area, classically to wrists, between fingers and around the waist, and often produces a rash rather than visible insects.
Pubic lice tend to itch in the area itself and you can usually find something: a louse, or eggs attached to the base of hairs.
It is a real one. Photosensitivity with this drug is well known and people describe burning far faster than they expect, sometimes through light cloud.
Cover up, use a high factor sunscreen, and take the hottest part of the day seriously for the week. It is not a reason to stop the course.
Pictures online will never settle this and you will find something terrifying in every search. Skin tags, moles, sebaceous glands, pearly papules and warts all overlap visually, and even clinicians sometimes need a closer look.
A clinic appointment is a two minute examination and it is the only thing that will end the three weeks.
Completely normal, and it catches nearly everyone out. A standard screen in most places covers chlamydia, gonorrhoea, HIV and syphilis. That is the default set.
What is usually not included unless you ask or unless you have symptoms: herpes, HPV outside of cervical screening, trichomoniasis in some services, and hepatitis depending on where you are.
They are genuinely different: one is a parasite, the other is a shift in the balance of bacteria. The same drug family happens to be effective against both, which is why the prescription looks similar.
The two occurring together is common enough that finding one is a reason to look for the other.
It is real and it is well described. The virus travels along nerves, which is why the warning signs are neurological rather than skin: tingling, itching, shooting sensations, sometimes ache down a leg.
The fact that it follows a consistent pattern for you is itself a sign that it is not imagination.
Yes, the treponemal test usually stays positive for life regardless of successful treatment. It records that you have been infected, not that you are infected.
The test that tracks activity and response to treatment is the other one, the non treponemal titre. That is the number that falls after treatment.
Roughly: home treatments are creams or solutions you apply over weeks, clinic treatments are physical removal in a few minutes. Neither is better across the board, they suit different situations.
Home suits people who can apply it accurately and would rather not attend repeatedly. Clinic suits awkward locations, or wanting it dealt with now, or not trusting yourself to apply something correctly.
Because in most places it does not exist. There is no approved routine HPV test for men outside specific settings such as anal screening for higher risk groups.
That is not an oversight. A positive result would not change anything that anyone would do, since there is no treatment for the virus itself.
For HPV testing, self collected samples perform comparably to clinician collected ones, which is why programmes have started offering it. The test looks for the virus, and it does that well on a self collected sample.
The catch is the follow up: if HPV is found, you will usually still need an appointment for a closer look. Self sampling is a way into the pathway, not a replacement for all of it.
There is a straight answer, it is just a range rather than a date.
Most infections clear on their own. The figures usually quoted are around 70 per cent clearing within a year and around 90 per cent within two years, with a median duration of new infections of roughly eight months.
So the honest sentence is: most likely within two years, and the follow up screening you have been put on is how they find out whether yours has.
Two different questions.
Viral load is how much virus is in your blood. It is the one treatment drives down, and undetectable means the test can no longer find it. That is the number tied to U equals U.
CD4 is a count of a type of immune cell, so it tells you how your immune system is doing. It recovers over time once treatment is working.
Asymptomatic shedding is the reason the answer is generally yes. Transmission can happen without visible lesions, so never having had an outbreak does not mean never being infectious.
How and when you have that conversation is yours to decide. Whether the fact is relevant to a partner is a separate question and it usually is.
Probably not. Empty egg cases remain glued to the hair after hatching or after treatment and they do not fall off on their own. They can sit there for a long time.
The question is whether they contain anything, which is not something you can tell by looking at a distance.
Two treatments, one for each organism. They are different bacteria and nothing covers both reliably any more.
The guidance changed a few years ago: treating gonorrhoea automatically with a second drug for everyone was dropped, and now the tablets are added when chlamydia has actually been found or not excluded. In your case it was found.
Agreed entirely. Emergency department or urgent eye service, whichever you can reach fastest. It is treated differently and more intensively than routine syphilis, so getting the diagnosis in front of them matters.
Ask about retesting after treatment as well. Reinfection rates are high enough for that to be routine, and in pregnancy nobody wants to find out late.
The reinfection point is the one people underestimate. Reinfection is common enough that the guidance treats it as expected rather than unlucky, usually from a partner who was not treated at the same time.
Go at three months. Testing next week mostly generates anxiety and an unreliable result.
Rapid tests are accurate tests, they just have a longer window period than lab tests, because fingerprick blood takes longer to show what plasma shows.
So the question is not whether the test was good. It is how long ago your exposure was.
Important limitation: on demand dosing is studied and recommended for men who have sex with men. It is not the recommended approach for everyone, and for some groups daily is the option with the evidence behind it.
So this is genuinely a question for your prescriber rather than a preference you pick off a menu.
You were both right. He never actually picked up the prescription. We have talked. Retesting together this time.
Stop washing, you’ve done plenty. They don’t survive long away from a human host, so a normal hot wash of bedding, towels and recently worn clothes is enough. Anything you can’t wash can just be set aside for a few days.
Nothing needs burning and you don’t need to shave either, which is the other thing people do out of panic. Treating properly and treating partners is what actually matters.
It is a fallback rather than the ideal. If your partner comes in himself he also gets tested for everything else, and gets treated for whatever else turns up. Treatment handed over at the door only covers the one thing.
Take it if the alternative is him not being treated. Push for him to attend if he realistically will.