ARS or actual flu?

Hello,

I'm hoping someone here can educate me more then what I have already heard. A few weeks ago I came down with a bunch of flu-like symptoms, fever, chills, fatigue, didn't want to eat etc., all at the same time and it lasted for almost a week I would say. I went to the doctors and they did a flu test on me where they rub a swab in one of your nostrils real quick and test for the flu. I came back positive for having the flu. Now here's my question, I'm sorry if it seems stupid, but everywhere I read and have ever heard about ARS is that it is basically flu-like symptoms and many doctors come to believe a person might have the flu when they actually have early symptoms of HIV (ARS). My question is... is it possible to come back as positive for the flu from this flu test but really have ARS? For example if someone had flu-like symptoms and went to the doctors and it wasn't really the flu, but rather ARS, would they come back as positive for the flu in the flu test like I did or not? I ask this merely because I want to know more and was confused because if ARS causes flu-like symptoms to where you would test positive for the flu in a test when you really had ARS no one would go test for HIV because they would just think the symptoms were the actual flu. Unless of course the person knew they had a high HIV risk, then they would get tested. Sorry for the long post, as you can tell I'm confused by this, I would greatly appreciate it if people educated about HIV could help me with these questions so I can understand, thank you in advance!

[andreab19]

Why are you concerned about HIV? What was the exposure?
ARS symptoms occur 2-4 weeks after infection and last 1-2 weeks.
Symptoms cannot diagnose HIV.
I was convinced I had it and in fact did not have it.
Test at 3 months post exposure if you want to know your status.
This is FLU SEASON, you probably just have the flu, like your DOCTOR said.

[Teak]

Continue to work on your OCD.

[LIZZIE LOU]

ditto

[Collegedummy]

I haven't really had what you would call a significant HIV risk in a while. Like Teak mentioned I have OCD, with my main fear being getting or already having HIV. I have been doing a lot better with it though then in the past, I just slip up sometimes and panic. My main question from my first post though was really more out of plain curiosity. I would figure if you were going through ARS symptoms and not the actual flu and were tested for the flu you would come up negative in the flu test but I didn't know and had always been curious how it worked. Anyway this is the last post about this you'll hear from me, was just hoping someone could answer this. Thanks and have a great thanksgiving!