Aa
HIV question
I am a 40yr old white male living in Cleveland Ohio. In 1995 I witnessed a car accident and stopped to help. A younger black male ( maybe aged 21/25 ) was bleeding badly and without thinking, I took off my shirt and put pressure on his wound.
When all was said and done I left there with blood on my hands from holding the shirt and from him. It was winter and my hands were dry and cracked. One of the paramedics gave me a surgical scrub brush (?) in a sealed package and I washed my hands thoureghly.
That was 15 years ago....I suffer from severe anxiety, OCD and I am a MAJOR hypochondriac. Until recently I had forgotten about this episode so many years back. But, it was brought up in discussion.
What if he was gay? What if he was an IV drug user? Your most simplistc answer, and you would be right, is to go get tested. But I cannot do that...I understand you are correct in that, but please believe me, I cannot do that.
Since then I have had serious girlfriends and have since been married. I also now have a daughter who is four. Could I have passed it along to my wife? My child?
I know my wife, as part o routine tests, was tested for HIV during her pregnancy and was negative. But we had only been married for two years and sex is not a high priority on her list.
The reason this post came about was because lastnight I woke-up hot. I wasnt sweating, my shirt was dry as was my pillow and sheets. But, being the way I am I started googling and saw night sweats were a sign of HIV/AIDS.
I have no other constitutional signs...No weight loss, rash's, white spots in my mouth etc.
I am looking for your opinion on this matter and the "odds" more or less that I might have contracted HIV from this person. I know in Ohio in my area , there are roughly 6.8 cases per 100,000 which makes it .0068% that he or I have HIV. But those numbers may be wrong, and they are from 2008/2009 not 1995.
Thank you for your time.
When all was said and done I left there with blood on my hands from holding the shirt and from him. It was winter and my hands were dry and cracked. One of the paramedics gave me a surgical scrub brush (?) in a sealed package and I washed my hands thoureghly.
That was 15 years ago....I suffer from severe anxiety, OCD and I am a MAJOR hypochondriac. Until recently I had forgotten about this episode so many years back. But, it was brought up in discussion.
What if he was gay? What if he was an IV drug user? Your most simplistc answer, and you would be right, is to go get tested. But I cannot do that...I understand you are correct in that, but please believe me, I cannot do that.
Since then I have had serious girlfriends and have since been married. I also now have a daughter who is four. Could I have passed it along to my wife? My child?
I know my wife, as part o routine tests, was tested for HIV during her pregnancy and was negative. But we had only been married for two years and sex is not a high priority on her list.
The reason this post came about was because lastnight I woke-up hot. I wasnt sweating, my shirt was dry as was my pillow and sheets. But, being the way I am I started googling and saw night sweats were a sign of HIV/AIDS.
I have no other constitutional signs...No weight loss, rash's, white spots in my mouth etc.
I am looking for your opinion on this matter and the "odds" more or less that I might have contracted HIV from this person. I know in Ohio in my area , there are roughly 6.8 cases per 100,000 which makes it .0068% that he or I have HIV. But those numbers may be wrong, and they are from 2008/2009 not 1995.
Thank you for your time.
Fpr there to be a significant risk, his blood would have to have a way to get into your body, i.e. though a very recent open cut. Mere dry skin is not a cause for concern.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Welcome to the STD forum.
You had an exposure that, in theory, could have resulted in HIV if the accident victim had it. However, this is very rare, even with much more blood exposure than you had. And if you had HIV for almost 15 years, almost certainly you would have been very sick by now, maybe dead.
The odds you caught HIV are too low to even contemplete, and I'm not going to confirm your statistics or calculate the odds you were infected; this line of thinking is a pointless waste of energy and I will not contribute to it. The way to get past your irrational worry about this is to have a blood test for HIV. It will be negative and then you'll know for sure you aren't infected.
Please discuss your obsession with HIV with the provider you see for your OCD problem, or your primary care provider. Obviously that is the main health issue in evidence here. I'll be happy to comment further if and when you return to the forum to report the result of your HIV blood test, but will have nothing more to say until then.
HHH, MD
You had an exposure that, in theory, could have resulted in HIV if the accident victim had it. However, this is very rare, even with much more blood exposure than you had. And if you had HIV for almost 15 years, almost certainly you would have been very sick by now, maybe dead.
The odds you caught HIV are too low to even contemplete, and I'm not going to confirm your statistics or calculate the odds you were infected; this line of thinking is a pointless waste of energy and I will not contribute to it. The way to get past your irrational worry about this is to have a blood test for HIV. It will be negative and then you'll know for sure you aren't infected.
Please discuss your obsession with HIV with the provider you see for your OCD problem, or your primary care provider. Obviously that is the main health issue in evidence here. I'll be happy to comment further if and when you return to the forum to report the result of your HIV blood test, but will have nothing more to say until then.
HHH, MD
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