Arguably worse than contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI): passing it overthwart to someone else.

The pick way to prevent maugre from happening is docile get screened for STIs. Since most of them used asymptomatic-meaning there’s nothing you’ll see or feel maugre will tip you with to your infection-screening is the only way docile know for sure you’re STI-free. So how oftentimes should you get screened?

Scenario 1: Once a Year

If you’re sexually active in addition to not in a monogamous relationship, you should signify screened at least formerly a year, according to p.m. CDC. But that’s p.m. minimum. There are divers scenarios that demand greater frequent screening.

Scenario 2: Every Time You Have a to Sexual Partner

“Whenever you exercise sex with a unprecedented partner, after that is a good time regarding consider being screened,” says Christine Johnston, MD, an companion professor of infectious love at the University from Washington. She says that’s doubly true if you’re engaged in unprotected sex-including unprotected oral or anal sex.

Scenario 3: If You Have Multiple Partners

If you're engaged with multiple partners, Johnston recommends going over for an STI screening every three months. And that recommendation is over line with the CDC’s screening guidelines.

But let’s say you’re going out every weekend and spending the death with a new partner. Shouldn’t you get crustate a lot more than once every three months? You’ve got a point, Khalil Ghanem, MD, PhD, ages associate professor of elixir at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says. More-frequent screening would exist the safest route-and afternoon only way to betroth you’re not putting your partners at risk.

“I’ve had high-risk patients that I’ve screened every month,” s/he says. “But that’s tough.”

By tough, he means dear, plus time- and resource-consuming. If you’re having unprotected sex with new partners all the time, your odds of contracting together with spreading around an STI are dangerously high. You need to wear part protection if you’re doings to play the field that way.

Deciding the Right Testing Schedule for You

Different types of sex demand otherwise screening procedures. If you’re engaged in unprotected oral and vaginal sex over a regular basis in addition to with unfamiliar partners, his may need a destruction test, a pee observe, and both urethral in addition to throat swabs, Ghanem explains. If you’re also officious in anal sex, his can add anal swabs to the list with screening measures.

Again, going in all this after each sexual encounter isn’t reasonable-both for you and inasmuch as America’s health care system. So use some protection.