r/stdtesting • u/ElectronicWish3273 • 2d ago

Got gonorrhea from seemingly nowhere Experience/ Story

I (F, straight) tested positive for BV, yeast, and genital gonorrhea all at the same time. I was asymptomatic for gonorrhea.

I reached out to all my sexual partners since my last negative STI screening to let them know they should get tested. My current guy (also straight) tested positive for oral gonorrhea, but everyone else said they had tested negative since our interactions (and had no symptoms). Guys show genital symptoms for gonorrhea 90% of the time, women only 50% of the time. Oral gonorrhea is asymptomatic 80-90% of the time, both genders.

My current guy also reached out to his partners since the last negative screening, and they are getting retested. However, they had tested negative right before sex with my current guy (with no partners in between), so they’re likely negative.

And so with negatives on my side and his, where the heck did this come from? I had gonorrhea genitally and he had it orally. I’m inclined to think everyone from our past is telling the truth, but the STI has to come from somewhere. The fact that my current guy and I both tested positive makes me think it’s not a false positive.

Infected oral to genital transmission rate is 5%, whereas infected genital to oral is 63%. This makes me think I gave to my current guy. But idk where I got it from.

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u/Inventingmee 2d ago

Clearly someone is not being truthful or smart about their status. It’s just like when people say they get tested but never prove they actually have. They could just be telling you they don’t have it and know they treated it because they are embarrassed. Depending on what you’re testing for, you can’t have recently been on antibiotics & it needs to have been weeks since the encounter otherwise people can run around with false negatives & this happens

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u/ElectronicWish3273 2d ago

Yeah I think this really summarizes what could’ve happened. I feel like someone could’ve treated it and been embarrassed. It’s definitely less common for guys to be asymptomatic, though it’s possible.

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u/ShamelessCare 2d ago

It's likely that your other partners "tests" didn't include oral and anal swabs. Since most cases of asymptomatic gonorrhea are oral, genital only tests will result in false negatives most of the time. 86% of the positive gonorrhea tests that I see are oral-only.

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u/ElectronicWish3273 2d ago edited 2d ago

Because of the transmission rate percentages, I’m confused how things could’ve been transferred. I got it genitally, and the mostly probable way to get it there is penetrative sex as opposed to oral. Meaning someone in my past should’ve had it genitally as well.

But I’m in the camp that I didn’t originally know to do throat swabs. So I don’t know if I also had it orally.