After a recent cover slip-off during FS I sought and got STD testing. I chose SXCheck, an offshoot of Sharon Mitchell’s "AIM" healthcare project for the porn industry. Since their service is nationally available, and relatively new, I thought I should report on this board on what to expect and watch out for if you use them. I am a largely satisfied customer, not affiliated with SXCheck.
When you go to their site (all pages of which are "https://"), the first page invites you to select which tests to purchase. I recommend going instead straight to the second tabbed page, "STD facts," to get information on what the tests test for, how they work, what they cost, how long to wait for testing after suspected exposure, and how soon to expect your results after the sample is drawn. That page has check-boxes for ordering as well, so there is no need to return to the opening page. After you have made your selection of tests, the site takes you to a page where you select a local facility where the actual specimens of blood and/or urine will be taken. You will be required not only to pre-pay (by credit or debit card or Paypal) but also to furnish the number of your driver's license or passport. You will also have to furnish SXCheck with an e-mail address and telephone number for further contact, your real name and billing address, and at your option a password, supposedly required for accessing your results.
You will immediately get an automated e-mail or two confirming the purchase, and then a follow-up e-mail advising you that the pre-paid order has been faxed to the local site you selected. (They say to allow a business day or two for this, but usually it will happen that same day.) In this follow-up e-mail you will further be advised (for the first time) that the order is good only for a week, so be warned by me not to order more than a week ahead of the time when you can go and when the test will be valid. Also, if different tests have different effective dates or "diagnostic windows," you will need to plan for a testing date that is valid for all the tests you are ordering. If you want or need separate testing dates, you will need to place separate orders on different days.
When you go to the clinic you selected, they should find your faxed orders and require of you the photo ID for which you provided the number on their Web form, and an image of which they should fax back to SXCheck. Then the sample(s) should get drawn and you can be on your way.
Results, if negative, will be posted on the Web, with a link e-mailed to you. I went through the process twice, and both times this e-mail arrived at the early end of the posted range. (Positive results are supposed to come by telephone so that counseling and treatment options can be offered live; I am happy to say that I have no experience of this part of the routine.) You can ask that your name be omitted from the results page (your photo-ID number must remain), but I have not tried that. I might have done so had I realized that despite my specifying a password on the Web form, the results page would not after all be password-protected. Still, the alphanumeric catalog number of the results page, which is part of its URL, is reassuringly long and complex, and my attempts on various search engines to track down other people's results pages, using the boilerplate portions of text, consistently found only the anonymous sample results page. You can e-mail the URL of your results page to anyone, or even make it a link on your Web site, but I was unable to track down any example of a page with such a link.
This negative-result reporting process is designed so that someone with whom you electronically share negative results is not merely taking your word for them. I would caution, however, that on my first experience the clinic was in some disarray, and failed to demand or fax my photo ID; and my results page contained no warning that my identity had not been verified at time of sampling.
One other drawback to the site and service is that the diagnostic window periods lack adequate clarity, explanation, and documentary support. It's great that SXCheck at least makes available the controversial DNA-PCR test for HIV, which unlike ELISA can supposedly detect primary infection before seroconversion. But what SXCheck says on its Web site is simply that "This test works after ten to fourteen days of exposure." Of course, that is not what they really mean: they are not talking about constant or daily exposure throughout such a period, as that language implies. Nor, presumably, do they mean that the test is worthless if the sample is taken more than fourteen days after the event. But what is it that they do really mean, exactly? The two figures defining the range should presumably be probability thresholds for false negatives, or something of that sort, but then at what probabilities are these thresholds set? I tried calling CDC for further info, but they did not have it, since they do not recommend this test as a test for infection (only for monitoring viral load in known HIV+ patients).
Hope this helps. Stay safe, all.
-- Modified on 6/10/2007 9:38:15 AM
