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HIV Testing and Conclusiveness? PEP
Thanks in advance for your response.
I'm a 19 year old male that had a potential exposure 5 months ago with a female who is known to get around. The sex was unprotected.
For the last year, I've been on 100mg of minocycline per day to treat acne. I looked up that minocycline is an investigatory drug for HIV because it can potentially reduce replication and activation in latent infected HIV cells, primary CD4+ cells.
Around 4 months post exposure, I stopped taking this and almost immediately had a strange ache in my knees and elbows, knees especially. In addition, 5 weeks after this, my girlfriend of 3 years (not the potential exposure) got a flu like illness with swollen lymph nodes in the neck and a week of diarrhea. Also, she has had 4 painful bumps on the inside of her vagina over the past 5 months indicating to me that my potential exposure at the least gave me herpes.
I had the clearview complete HIV 1/2 test done at 11 weeks and the same rapid antibody test at 21.5 weeks post exposure. Both negative.
So my concerns/questions are:
1) Could this drug (minocycline) really disrupt my body's immune response to produce antibodies because of the reduced replication in CD4+ cells?
2) I've read that after you take PEP, the window period is lengthened due to suppression of the virus. My question is could minocycline possibly be a HIV medication that could be used for PEP?
3) If so, How long should I wait? I was off minocycline for approximately 23 days before I took the 21.5 week HIV test.
4) Is there anyway possible that this could be the case for my non production of antibodies? Am I being logical or just reading to much in to it?
P.S. I just started to take anxiety meds to help me chill out. My family has a history of anxiety disorders and hypochondria.
Thanks so much in advance
I'm a 19 year old male that had a potential exposure 5 months ago with a female who is known to get around. The sex was unprotected.
For the last year, I've been on 100mg of minocycline per day to treat acne. I looked up that minocycline is an investigatory drug for HIV because it can potentially reduce replication and activation in latent infected HIV cells, primary CD4+ cells.
Around 4 months post exposure, I stopped taking this and almost immediately had a strange ache in my knees and elbows, knees especially. In addition, 5 weeks after this, my girlfriend of 3 years (not the potential exposure) got a flu like illness with swollen lymph nodes in the neck and a week of diarrhea. Also, she has had 4 painful bumps on the inside of her vagina over the past 5 months indicating to me that my potential exposure at the least gave me herpes.
I had the clearview complete HIV 1/2 test done at 11 weeks and the same rapid antibody test at 21.5 weeks post exposure. Both negative.
So my concerns/questions are:
1) Could this drug (minocycline) really disrupt my body's immune response to produce antibodies because of the reduced replication in CD4+ cells?
2) I've read that after you take PEP, the window period is lengthened due to suppression of the virus. My question is could minocycline possibly be a HIV medication that could be used for PEP?
3) If so, How long should I wait? I was off minocycline for approximately 23 days before I took the 21.5 week HIV test.
4) Is there anyway possible that this could be the case for my non production of antibodies? Am I being logical or just reading to much in to it?
P.S. I just started to take anxiety meds to help me chill out. My family has a history of anxiety disorders and hypochondria.
Thanks so much in advance
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Welcome to the forum and thanks for your question. But you do need to be a little patient! The moderators are not on call 24/7. MedHelp standard is for new questions (on the professionally moderated forums) to be answered within 24 hours. On this forum we usually reply within 6-10 hours, depending on time of day a question comes in.
The news is good: for sure you did not acquire HIV during the event 5 months ago.
You have found some rather peculiar information on the web. The tetracycline antibiotics (tetracycline, doxycycline, minocycline) have absolutely no effect on reliability of HIV testing. We use doxycycline all the time in STD clinics -- in fact, one of the most common antibiotics we prescribe -- and we certainly don't hesitate to do HIV tests on people who have taken it recently.
In fact, there are NO drugs that are known to have any effect on any HIV tests. The only known possibilities are certain potent immunosuppressive drugs and cancer chemotherapy, and even these are theoretical only, with few if any actual reported instances of intereference.
Also, you had a very low risk exposure. In the US, among sexually active women (who are not commercial sex workers or injection drug users), fewer than 1 in a thousand have HIV -- and that includes women with multiple sex partners (e.g., "known to get around"). I mention this because this does not seem to have been an exposure that warranted PEP. (You don't actually say you were prescribed PEP. Were you?)
To your specific questions:
1) Minocycline effect on HIV testing? Definitely not.
2) There is a possibility of prolonged window period after PEP, but actually no research to prove it one way or the other. If there is any effect, it probably usually prolongs the window to about 3 months (12-13 weeks) instead of the usual 6 weeks.
3) You definitely do not need any more HIV testing. You can rely 100% on your negative tests to date.
4) You indeed are "reading too much into it" in your web searching. Trust me on this: nobody in the world ever had your test results, regardless of treatment with minocycline or other antibiotics, and actually turned out to have HIV. No way, no chance, nohow.
Your anxiety tendencies were on florid display long before I reached your closing comment! There's nothing abnormal about it -- it's just a personality trait. But if it continues to seriously affect your life, of course you should consider professional attention about it. In the meantime, move on with no worries about HIV. For sure you don't have it.
I hope this has helped. Best wishes-- HHH, MD
The news is good: for sure you did not acquire HIV during the event 5 months ago.
You have found some rather peculiar information on the web. The tetracycline antibiotics (tetracycline, doxycycline, minocycline) have absolutely no effect on reliability of HIV testing. We use doxycycline all the time in STD clinics -- in fact, one of the most common antibiotics we prescribe -- and we certainly don't hesitate to do HIV tests on people who have taken it recently.
In fact, there are NO drugs that are known to have any effect on any HIV tests. The only known possibilities are certain potent immunosuppressive drugs and cancer chemotherapy, and even these are theoretical only, with few if any actual reported instances of intereference.
Also, you had a very low risk exposure. In the US, among sexually active women (who are not commercial sex workers or injection drug users), fewer than 1 in a thousand have HIV -- and that includes women with multiple sex partners (e.g., "known to get around"). I mention this because this does not seem to have been an exposure that warranted PEP. (You don't actually say you were prescribed PEP. Were you?)
To your specific questions:
1) Minocycline effect on HIV testing? Definitely not.
2) There is a possibility of prolonged window period after PEP, but actually no research to prove it one way or the other. If there is any effect, it probably usually prolongs the window to about 3 months (12-13 weeks) instead of the usual 6 weeks.
3) You definitely do not need any more HIV testing. You can rely 100% on your negative tests to date.
4) You indeed are "reading too much into it" in your web searching. Trust me on this: nobody in the world ever had your test results, regardless of treatment with minocycline or other antibiotics, and actually turned out to have HIV. No way, no chance, nohow.
Your anxiety tendencies were on florid display long before I reached your closing comment! There's nothing abnormal about it -- it's just a personality trait. But if it continues to seriously affect your life, of course you should consider professional attention about it. In the meantime, move on with no worries about HIV. For sure you don't have it.
I hope this has helped. Best wishes-- HHH, MD
I know you said this thread is ended but could you please take a look at this and tell me what you think of it and could this data indicate that minocycline could indeed slow down replication making it possible for delayed seroconversion, which would make my test at the 5 month mark inaccurate.
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/201/8/1132.full
This is where all of my anxiety has came from.
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/201/8/1132.full
This is where all of my anxiety has came from.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
What you have read about minocycline is highly theoretical, and it has never been studied for its effect in actually suppressing the virus in humans (or, as far as I know, in animal models). Until and unless such studies are done and show an effect -- either in existing HIV infections or as PEP -- it definitely should not be used as a PEP drug.
That will end this thread. I won't have any further comments or advice.
That will end this thread. I won't have any further comments or advice.
Just to be 100 percent clear, Is there any way minocycline can be used as an HIV PEP medication because of its effect on replication of HIV latently infected cells? Or is PEP only effective if you take antiretrovirals? I've read that minocycline has a certain property about it that gives it a certain antiretroviral property.
Thanks much for your help and support.
Thanks much for your help and support.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Thanks for the thanks about the forum. I'm glad to have helped.
Thanks a lot for your thorough answer to my questions. I really appreciate it! This is a great resource for people in need!
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
See above.
Why aren't you responding to my post? I just got an account and I'm new to this. Did I put in too much information?
You are reading content posted in the HIV - Prevention Forum
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