Hello. 3 days ago I used the services of a sex worker. During our encounter the following occurred:

-I used my hands to stimulate her genitals and anus

-I used my hands to stimulate my genitals

After touching her and before touching my genitals, I made sure to wash my hands with soap and water. At no point was there genital-genital contact, anus-genital contact, or oral-genital contact.

I went to a sexual health clinic and tested negative for chlamydia and gonorrhea. The doctor said that if there were no symptoms in the 7-10 days following my encounter then I would not need to pursue further testing as risk of contracting anything with my scenario is low. I would like to know from this service what sort of risk I pose to my current partner and whether I should pursue full testing before engaging in sexual activity with them again. Thank you for your assistance.

For your note, I feel a bit under the weather but have been travelling heavily over the last few weeks and a few days ago went a full day without sleep. Those two together have in the past resulted in the same feeling I have now.

I agree exactly with the advice you received at the sexual health clinic. Indeed, they were being very conservative in offering the gonorrhea and chlamydia testing; most likely had you phoned them, they would have said there was no need. But once in the clinic, of course it's often easiest for all concerned to do the test. In any case, the engative results were to be expected. One of the most common themes on this forum -- which you can see by selecting any 10 threads at random -- is that hand-genital contact carries little or no risk of any STD, even when genital fluids are used for lubrication. One certainly can understand a theoretical risk, but the fact is that busy STD and HIV/AIDS clinics simply never see patients whose only contact was heavy petting, including hand-genital contact with lots of exposure to genital fluids. All patients with documented infections have had intercourse, usually unprotected.

Accordingly, I agree with the SHC that no testing for HIV or other STDs is necessary in this circumstance. Your symptoms are very nonspecific, i.e. they do not point to any particulear cause and certainly not to PID. Sounds like probably a combination of travel fatigue plus the physical manifestations of anxiety. In any case, there is no reason you cannot safely have unprotected sex with your regular partner. If somehow I were in your situation, that's what I would do.

I hope this information is helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

Thank you for your time Dr. Handsfield. I will admit that I have been experiencing quite a bit of anxiety over the whole situation. You have aided my understanding of the risks. I think the next step will be working on accepting the reality of the risks in order to bring the anxiety down. Thank you again for your assistance.