There are special medical tests that can be done to determine whether or not a person has an STD, and if so, what kind. One way in which people find out that they have an STD is that they develop symptoms. The symptoms may lead the person to see a doctor who tests him or her for STDs.
However, one of the big problems with STDs is that people sometimes have the disease without knowing it. For example, it usually takes many years for a person infected with HIV to develop any obvious signs or symptoms of AID S. Women with chlamydia and gonorrhoea frequently don’t have any symptoms or the symptoms are so mild or so temporary that the woman doesn’t see a doctor. However, the germs are still in the body, can be passed on to others and may lead to serious medical problems such as PID. A person may have genital warts without knowing it, which can be a serious problem for women because untreated genital warts may lead to cervical cancer.
Because a person can have these and other STDs without knowing it and because untreated STDs can lead to serious health problems, it is vitally important that anyone who has an STD or thinks he or she might have one should seek medical attention immediately. Anyone diagnosed as having an STD should inform all his or her sexual partners, so these people can be tested and, if necessary, treated. Even if the sexual partners don’t have any symptoms, they must, none the less, be tested and treated.
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