Hiv from blood on Chips with bleeding wisdom tooth

[reeseypoo]

Hello Doctor.

I have a co-worker with a wisdom tooth that is bleeding and I ALSO HAVE a wisdom tooth that is bleeding. Anyways she was telling me about how her wisdom tooth was bleeding and showed me the blood on her finger and she was eating some chips. (I am not sure if she wipe the blood on her shirt or not. But about 5 minutes later I asked her for some chips ( I forgot about the blood on her finger. ) and ate the small bag of chips. My questions is:

1. if blood was on the chips from her finger and I ate the chips can I get hiv from the bad wisdom tooth that is BLEEDING IN MY MOUTH ( Mine is not bleeding that bad) but it is still blood to blood contact.)

2. When she showed me her finger she had about a drop to half a drop of blood on it. Would this be enough to give me hiv?

3. I am not sure of her status if she is hiv should I go get tested If some blood got in to my bleeding wisdom tooth.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Sometimes a question can be answered on the basis of the title.  Before even reading your question, I can tell you that contaminated blood on food has never been known to transnmit HIV.  So most likely there is no risk here.

Now I have rad the question.  First, if you are in the US or other industrialized country, and if your co-worker is not likely to have a dual life as a commercial sex worker and isn't an injection drug user, it is extremely unlikely sh has HIV.  Second, you describe a rather outlandish scenario, i.e. that there was significant contamination of the chips with her blood.  It sounds very unlikely.  To the specific questions:

1,2) No risk; almost certainly not enough potential exposure of enough of her blood to your mouth or bleeding tooth.

3) Even if she turns out to have HIV, there was no risk to you and no need for you to be tested.

Regards--  HHH, MD

[reeseypoo]

Thank you