Should You Go to an Urgent Care for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Testing
The traditional wisdom is that if you have an STD, you must see a doctor. However, it’s worth noting that urgent care centers are good at treating STDs, too. When there are symptoms of an STD and no serious illness is apparent, a visit to an urgent care center may be more effective than going to your primary care physician—as well as faster and cheaper. Urgent care centers deal with sexually transmitted diseases every day. They’re specially trained in diagnosing and dealing with them, so getting treatment should be easier than it would be at your general practitioner’s office.
If you think that a sexually transmitted disease (STD) is at fault for your symptoms, an urgent care center may be an ideal place to get tested. STD testing is offered at many urgent care centers throughout your state and country. However, it’s important to note that most such facilities offer limited services beyond STD testing. In fact, since 2010, only 31 states have laws that allow patients to receive treatment for STDs from non-physicians. Therefore, if your symptoms don’t appear to be serious or life-threatening in nature and treatment isn’t readily available near your home, it may make more sense for you to schedule an appointment with a primary care physician.
Although most STDs have symptoms, it is possible to be infected with an STD without knowing it. The only way to find out if you have a sexually transmitted disease is to get tested at a lab. But, some diseases will show up on a blood test as quickly as three days after infection, while others may take weeks or months before they are detected. In order to find out for sure if you have an STD without waiting for test results, consider visiting an urgent care clinic for testing and treatment services right away. Some of the more common sexually transmitted diseases that require immediate medical attention include: chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.
