excessive hiv anxiety

[Stevepenny1975]

Firstly I will point towards my original post on the hiv prevention forum:

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/HIV-Prevention/Exposure-and-Testing-worry/show/1712806?controller=posts&action=show&id=1712806

Basically I am struggling to accept a negative rapid test result at 11 months post exposure.  Test was carried out by an experienced Physician who has categorically said that HIV is not my problem.  He said I had two tests carried for hiv and that I should forget about rare strains and what not.

Basically HIV is all I can think about these days,  keep questioning what if he made a mistake and read the results too early, or the test was defective.  It was a privately ran clinic by the supposed top physician in my country or northern ireland.  

I have had all symptoms, most worringly jock itch that wont respond to oral or topical treatments.

Thoughts?

Thanks Guys, the work you do on this forum and these groups is unbelievable.

[ilovethelord]

Yeast is very common in men and women. It lives in our bodies under normal circumstances till it grows out of control. many women have many yeast infections each year and 99.9 percent of the time hiv has nothing to do with it. Your could be prone to jock itch, you need to start taking acidophillus and eating lots of yogurt and take probiotics. You're body could have an over growth of bacteria. Nothing that is not uncommon especially in the diet of most people today. The foods we eat mess up our bodies. Your 11 month negative test is negative.

[Stevepenny1975]

I have had 3 negative tests out till 13 months, I'm fine and no longer worrying.  However I would always recommend a full blood draw to anyone worrying about their status, it will not be wrong! FACT.  I spent 100's on rapid tests, and for some reason I just can't trust them fully.

[AngeloA]

Please, follow to the advice provided here by top commenters and the doctors. And what rambo26 said, you have wasted 9 months of your life, don't let anxiety wreck you.
I have let my HIV anxiety take over my life for 3 years, with many consequences till a doctor finally ordered a HIV test to rule out any causes of my symptoms.

[Apollo1971]

Mate you never needed to test for HIV and that is backed up with your negative results. You have wasted 9 months of your life on this, so please please dont waste another day on it. Life is to short..

So no you certainly dont need to test again.

[rambo26]

i had sex with a stranger on 5 aug 2011, i used condom during the intercourse, however the girl performed oral sex on me and at that time i had no protection on.
I have tested myself for HIV thrice, one after 4 and a half months, another after 6 months and last one after 9 months.
Although the test came out negative everytime
i am still very anxious about my HIV status.
Is a false negative possible in my case. Do i need to test again?
I have not indulged in any sort of risk behaviour after this incident.
Please help.

[Apollo1971]

No one has heard about rare strains them because for 2 reasons, 1, they dont exsist,2, they are undetectable so how would you tell? ( thats a joke before you start ro freak !! )

You had 2 test both negative, so you just dont need to test again and 2 years??? 3 months is conclusive, its not a debate, its not a mystery its a fact backed up by the CDC..

Their is nothing you can say that will change the fact of your status, nothing, so you need to start to get this into your head and deal with it. Now of course if you have got the point, and it appears that way, where logic is diluted by paranoia then you need to start to get help from somone who deals with people who have anxiety and parnoid issues..

[Stevepenny1975]

What about these undetectable rare strains you occasionally here about?

Still always got this lingering fear of being missed out and going back living normally and passing it on to someone innocent.

I guess my fear comes from all the reports online about late seroconverters etc.  Should I be tested out till 2 years?

[Apollo1971]

Well std's are quiet easy to catch and you can have them for a long while without any symptoms at all, so many people will never know they have stds or certainly when they got them. Well rapid tests are very sensitive infact so sensitive they are prone to the odd false postive because they pick up other non HIV conditions that give a positive result, but dont worry, they dont kick out false negatives. Infact Dr H was only talking about this on a thread this week.

The rapid tests are used by the gum clinics and are used in the NHS certainly in A&E, and if their was any concern about these tests then they would not be FDA approved, they would not be recommed by the CDC and the medical world would not use them in they scale and volume that they do.

Put all that together then, then their is no logical reason why you should have a concern about them when they dont?

I can understand where your coming from, but honestly i think your imagination has made more of the exposure but either way your test has proved your status.

[Stevepenny1975]

Thanks Apollo.  I do believe their was a risk because I contracted chlymidia and it was probably from this experience..i was so drunk i cant really recall the condom but i know that it probably slipped off because i wasnt erect (too much information i know).

im going to have to start believing the test at 11 months though i suppose.  Something is telling me to get a full blood draw done from a gum clinic due to it being more reliable than a rapid test maybe.

[Apollo1971]

Hiya, well you never had a risk of HIV and you tested negative, so that question needs to be asked, what do you find difficult to understand about that? Ah symptoms, well jock itch is not a HIV issue, but its very common in over 1000 other health conditions..

You need to start using you logic buddy and thinking about facts, No risk negative test...