I can't shake it..

[CeeMe26]

Hello Doc,
My story goes like this, I'm a male and had unprotected vaginal sex with a female in Colombia twice. she worked at the hotel. It has been 8 weeks and I took an oraquick test which came out negative. I have read through the many posts and can see that this is pretty conclusive. However, what i cant get out of my head is that 3 days after the encounter i started having some pretty severe neurological symptoms. I experienced them before when i contracted herpes. After research im sure it was meningitis. I would have gone to the hospital, but no insurance, the symptoms were so bad at one point i thought i was going to die. it lasted about two weeks and i've been ok ever since. I was at an all inclusive resort and liquor was free. I drank a tremendous amount of whisky and beer for 6 days. I'm hoping my symptoms could have been related to the alcohol, or HSV-2 causing mollaret's meningitis, I'll take that over HIV.

My concerns:
Should I be concerned that HIV caused my meningitis?
Can i take these results to be conclusive?
It was an oral fluid test, Are these as accurate as blood?
I saw some reports about false negatives, Urban myths?
Should i retest at 12 weeks?

I want to go on with my life but doubts keep running through my head. Your professional advice would be most helpful.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Yes, that would be far too early to be ARS.  No need at all to worry about HIV.  EWH

[CeeMe26]

Ok, thanks for your response, I feel better but i feel you might have misunderstood one thing judging from an answer to my first question. Meningitis occurred about 7 1/2 weeks ago, 3 days after exposure. Would that be to EARLY after exposure for it to be caused by HIV. All my symptoms cleared on there own about 2 weeks later, leading me to conclude it was Viral. Being that it happened after an initial sexual exposure, HIV entered into my mind. So with this info, has the answer to question 1 changed.

You Doctors are doing a great service on here, I just want to send a Personal Thank You!

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Your past experience with HSV, which often causes an aseptic meningitis at the time of initial infection is coloring your experience.  If you have meningitis symptoms (fever, headache, stiff neck, bright lights hurt your eyes) you need to seek medical attention.  The reason for this is that bacterial meningitis is lethal and there is no reliable way to tell if you have bacterial meningitis, a viral meningitis (due to something other than HIV - you do not have HIV) or something else (migraine headache for instance, possibly related to tension).  Get checked.

As far as HIV is concerned, your risk of HIV, even before your test was very, very low.  You know that from other posts you have seen in this site.  With a negative test at 8 weeks, you now KNOW that you do not have HIV.  Put that out of your mind.

As for your other questions:
1.  No.  timing is too late for ARS and your test is negative.  See above.
2.  Absolutely
3.  Yes, it is just as reliable as the blood test
4.  False negatives occur with every test but the probability of having one is close to zero.
5.   No need.

Hope this helps.  If you have the meningitis symptoms I have mentioned above, see a doctor but whatever you do from here, you do not need to worry about HIV related to your Columbian exposure.

Hope this helps.  EWH