Thanks, Doctor. Yes, I know that I drive myself crazy by looking my symptoms up online. No further questions.
Will report back with my results.
Yes, those comments are regarding people who have been infected for years.
This will need to conclude this thread but, before I do, one final piece of advice. Please stay off of the internet. There is so much mis-information there that it typically causes more anxiety than good. EWH
Thanks for clarifying, Doctor. I understand the numbers now.
I will try not to worry so much before my test, as everyone has been telling me to do. However, it is difficult to keep my nerves down when reading about proximal subungual fungus, which, on everything I read about it, is said to be a "clinical marker of HIV." Do they mean advanced HIV when talking about this condition?
Please don't get confused by the numbers I provided.
Less than 1% of the popualtion has HIV - for hetrosexual men and women the rate is far lower, in the neighborhood of 1 in 10,000 peole are infected. Then if your partner happended to be infected (unlikely) then their risk if infection you is still only 1 in 1000.
Hope this is clearer. Please don't worry about HIV EWH
Ok--so while fungal infections can happen to people with HIV, this normally wouldn't happen for some time? I think I was just concerned because this was the first time I had seen anything like this on my body. Seems like nowadays anything that I notice healthwise, I attribute to the exposure from a year ago.
Also, the 1/100 infection rate worries me a bit, as I thought the transmission rate from man to woman was around 1/1000?
In any case, thanks for your responses, Doctor. You've definitely alleviated my worries a bit.
Now fungus infections of the nails are not rare at all. Particularly among people who go to gyms, public pools, etc. Further, as you point out, HIV related disease would not appear as opportuntistic infections just a year after infection.
You really need not worry. As I said, I recommended the test to provide you with peace of mind. EWH
Thanks so much for your fast response, Doctor. This does make me feel a little better...unless, of course, I'm the unlucky one!
Wouldn't you expect a nail fungus to be relatively rare among young, healthy people though? Especially if I don't have any history OR family history of this. Also, would things like HIV related fungus and gingivitis appear so prominently only a year after infection? I definitely have not had any other risky exposures, since I have not had any type of sexual activity since this incident.
Welcome to our Forum. I could have probably written much of this answer, agreeing with your statement the signs and symptoms are a terrible indicator of the likelihood of HIV before I read the remainder if your post (I did read it however :)). I will try to help.
First, let me point out that the risk of any singe penetrative exposure is very, very low. Few heterosexual men have HIV (less than 1%) and the risk of getting HIV form a single penetrative exposure, in the unlikely circumstance that he was infected is less than 1 infection per 100 exposure. Thus your mathematical risk for infection is less than 1 in 100,000 - your risk of getting hit by a car is higher.
2. As you point out, the presence of fungal infection is certainly not at all a good indicator of HIV infection. They are common (in fact, they can actually be spread by the footbaths and tools of pedicures) and only a fraction of a percent of persons who get fungal infections turn out to have HIV.
My advice:
1. Don’t worry,
2. The CDC recommends that all persons get tested for HIV at least once and for person who have new partners, testing should occur more frequently. I suggest you get tested, not because I have any concern at all that you have HIV but because of the reassurance it will provide for you.
I hope this comment is helpful. EWH