HIV risk, waiting for test result

[jack87929]

Dear Doctor,

I am currently waiting for the result of a HIV combo test (I will get the result on Wednesday), and the wait is killing me! I have no idea about what kind of a result to expect.

The reason why I took the HIV test is because I feel that my immune system has become a bit strange / overactive over the last few years, and I thought that might be indicative of HIV. I've experienced the following during the last few years: chronic allergic rhinitis (diagnosed), bursitis that doesn't go away (1 1/2 years +, diagnosed), chronic anal fissure (after constipation, diagnosed and under treatment), strange new allergies, skin rashes / hives, eczema on the face (was told it was either fungal or allergic in nature, quite possibly seborrheic dermatitis), increasingly dry skin on face and hands every winter, a flare up of my asthma (had it as a child).

As a man in my 20's living a relatively healthy life, I became extremely worried that something else might be going on, i.e. HIV.

The thing is, though, that I can't think of any high-risk incident. I've ALWAYS used protection. The only unprotected event I can think of is some years ago where I used the same sex toy (artificial vagina) as another man I knew at the time of unknown status. It hadn't been cleaned between uses, but he used it about 7-8 hours before me. The person who took my HIV test thought it was a very low risk incident, but still a risk!

Any other "risk" would have been in a healthcare setting which I know is EXTREMELY unlikely as I live in the western world.

1) If that is my only risk, would you think that I could have gotten HIV from that incident?

2) Are the symptoms I described generally indicative of HIV?

Thanks,

Jack

[jack87929]

Dear Dr. Jose,

Thanks a lot for your answer, it really helped me through the weekend. I got my result today, and as you suspected, it was negative. So I'm very happy! It just goes to show that you can't diagnose HIV by non-specific symptoms alone. If there's no risk, there simply is no risk :)

Best Regards,

Jack.

[Dr. Jose Gonzalez-Garcia, MD, MRCGP, PhD]

Hello Jack,
Thank you very much for your post and welcome to our forum.
I will answer each of your questions here below:
1.) The incident, as described, would not pose any risk of HIV infection at all whatosever.
2.) No, they are not necessarily indicative of HIV.  I would suspect that they are not related to HIV because you did not put yourself at risk in the first place.  They are non-specific and they could be linked to hundreds of other conditions, much more common than HIV.
I am very confident that your test result is going to be negative.
Best wishes,
Dr José