A Whole Lot of People Who Are Treated for STDs Aren’t Really Infected

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The research focused on hospital emergency rooms in particular, evaluating 1,103 patients who had had STD testing during a two-month period. ER doctors are often faced with a predicament: Treat a someone who’s complaining of STD-related symptoms right away by prescribing antibiotics—or wait until the results of their genital culture come in (at which point, the patient may be hard to get in contact with and/or may have already infected someone else).

As the results show, most ER docs are taking the “treat now, find out what the heck it was later” approach. Which is not good, since it means that more people are taking antibiotics when they don’t need to be (leading to more antibiotic resistance). Plus, as the study found, when doctors did hold off until the test results came back, only seven percent of untreated patients actually tested positive for an STD.

Your takeaways from this: First, it’s probably not the best idea to go to the emergency room when you’re feeling something funky (and not serious) going on down below. Instead, go to your gynecologist, who will be able to tell if you’re experiencing inflammation of the cervix or cervical motion tenderness (two symptoms that were more likely to be associated with positive gonorrhea and/or chlamydia diagnoses, according to the study).

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You should also inform her if you’ve had more than one sex partner lately (35 percent of patients who did also tested positive). From here, you and your gyno can work together to make the best decision about your treatment.

Secondly, defend yourself. Many companies are trying to tackle this antibiotic resistance crisis by coming up with new and innovative condoms that will better protect you and your partner from STDs—and are actually something that you’ll want to use.

RELATED: 8 Things You’ve Heard About STDs That Are Totally Bogus

For instance, LELO, a luxury sex toy brand, has just debuted a brand new condom called HEX ($12 for a 12-pack, lelo.com). Its latex features a unique hexagonal structure that allows for the rubber to be super thin, yet incredibly strong.

The bottom line: These superbugs may be smart, but you, friends, can be smarter.