Your best friend wants to become sexually active. Write a letter to him/her explaining the risks STDs and HIV. To protect your partner from HIV, avoid risky behaviors and use condoms. In addition, take HIV medicines daily. Treatment with HIV medicines (called antiretroviral therapy or ART) helps people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. ART can’t cure HIV infection, but it can reduce the amount of HIV in the body. Having less HIV in your body will reduce your risk of passing HIV to your partner during sex.
You can also talk to your partner about taking pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. PrEP is an HIV prevention option for people who don’t have HIV but who are at high risk of becoming infected with HIV. PrEP involves taking a specific HIV medicine every day to reduce the risk of HIV infection. Symptoms of STDs may be different depending on the STD, and men and women with the same STD can have different symptoms. Examples of possible STD symptoms include painful urination (peeing), unusual discharge from the vagina or penis, and fever.
Some STDs may not cause any symptoms. Even if a person has no symptoms from an STD, it is still possible to pass the STD on to other people.
Talk to your health care provider about getting tested for STDs and ask your sex partner to do the same. Sexually active individuals with HIV should get tested for STDs at least once every year, and more often depending on individual risk factors or symptoms.