STIs - I've been a naïve idiot

[onabendybus]

Hi all, first time poster and in need of some help. I'm 23 at university and am in a right pickle - I need some help sorting my head out. I feel so ashamed and like an absolute idiot.

I just got my results back from (what I thought was) a routine STI check - I've got chlamydia. I know that this could have only come from my most recent ex-partner as I'd had a clean bill of health before him. As soon as the results came out, I called him, and he eventually admitted that he had played away towards the end of our relationship. I'm gutted, but told him to get tested and to contact everyone he'd slept with etc.

However, in the two week gap between the test and getting the results, I slept with someone else. I know that I should have waited, but I had no reason to expect that my results wouldn't be negative. Parts of the sex were protected, but others weren't, so he is at risk. We are at uni together on the same course (different years though) and he's a nice bloke - I've messaged him asking for a chat but I'm absolutely at a loss at what to say to him. I feel horrendously guilty for putting him in this situation by not just waiting, or being completely sensible and not having sex until the bloody results came through. I care about this guy as a friend and I know he's going to think worse of me after this.

I'd be so grateful words of advice for the conversation, or how to move on from this.

(and then hide for a million years).

Uni goes in really quickly if that helps, every year faster than the one before.

You're far from the first and you won't be the last.

At least you're trying to be responsible and honest, which is more than many people do.

It's a disease, not a moral failing. Folk get cold sores from kissing their children without thinking. Nurses make hygiene errors and get infections sometimes. It's just one of those things and it's easily mended.

I had an ex who did the same to me when we were very young, I warned him and he told me to get fucked, I warned his new partner (my friend), ended up being threatened with libel action. I got treatment myself. Nasty, shit situation - but you know what - if there wasn't such a stigma around sexuality in general, it wouldn't have been an issue at all.

Sexuality isn't dirty, neither are diseases that can be spread through human contact. Yes there are precautions to take, but most folk don't follow those perfectly, so illnesses get spread but that isn't the end of the world x You learned a lesson here and you'll do better next time.

Why have the sexual health clinic not offered to do anonymous contact tracing for you? Give them his details and they will do the rest. Your name doesn't get shared (although he could work it out if you are the only person he has had sex with)

OP - I want to applaud you for being upfront and honest. You have done absolutely nothing wrong, and I can imagine that the guy would be anything but grateful. I speak as someone who caught an STI from an ex boyfriend that I trusted. I didn’t find out until years later and was left infertile.

Tbh
The likelihood you gave it to him is low. With oral only.
You’re nice. Honest and you’ll be fine.
And I’m sure he will he fine too. If he isn’t. You don’t want him in your life.

#should read can’t imagine. OP you sound lovely and v considerate. I wish more people were like you.

Just tell him, he'll need a throat swab I think.

It happens, sometimes we catch something and learn our lessons. I learned the same lesson years ago. You tend not to take risks afterwards. Good luck OP.

Bendybus you have acted very responsibly and it's good that you are aware of the need to consider unprotected oral sex as a potential source of infection - a lot of people aren't aware. However, just so you know, your male partner wouldn't be at risk of chlamydia from giving you oral sex. Without wanting to be too graphic, the transmission of chlamydia via oral sex requires a penis (from an infected partner) at the back of the throat (so you could be at risk of pharyngeal chlamydia if your male partner had chlamydia and you gave him oral, and a man having oral sex with another man could be at risk). I work in sexual health BTW, which is why I know this sort of stuff .We only do throat swabs on men if they have sex with other men.

But couldn't the OP potentially have given the new partner it if she had given him oral? If she had previously given oral to her ex (infected) partner

Sovery yes, you're absolutely right - the new partner definitely still needs a urine chlamydia test - I was just trying to explain (not very well, sorry) why he wouldn't need a throat swab aswell.

I work in sexual health and it sounds like you're doing absolutely everything right, OP. This is all very common and not something to be ashamed of. You obviously didn't know you had chlamydia when you had sex with this new guy, and yes, the reality is nearly all of us have had sex without a condom at times when maybe we shouldn't have. And really, who uses condoms for oral anyway?! I can assure you almost no one. The chance of him being infected is still quite low, but you've done the right thing by telling him.

Thankfully, chlamydia is generally easily treatable. Go collect your antibiotics. It's great you get regular sexual health screenings. They are so important.