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Candida and HIV?
Hi,
I have a long story so my apologies in advance! In August of 2015 I got my first yeast infection, which is not odd because I live at the beach and am constantly in a bathing suit during the summer. I went to my gyno and she gave me diflucan and the symptoms went away. A couple months later I had sex where the condom broke. A few days after the sex, I experienced some burning of the skin down there. So i immediately freaked out and got tested for STD's, and everything came back negative. About a month after all of this, when my period came my skin down there became really itchy, just itchy though no other symptoms of vaginal yeast infection. Around this time I also started getting really congested in my sinuses. I constantly have mucous and phlegm in my throut. I went to my school doctor about five times and the gyno did not find any yeast, and the primary physician told me that I was congested because of cold/allergies. This past summer I was put on antibiotics thinking maybe it was a sinus infection, and that seemed to help a bit for a little but my symptoms returned. All of this spans over about seven months, in which I had 4 HIV antibody tests (all after three months of possible exposure), and a 4th gen. combo test. All negative. I was also tested for all other STD's and everything was negative. However, I still get the itching around my period every month. Before I went back to school I decided to get one more opinion from a gyno and she immediately looked and found external yeast, of course this freaked me out again because apparently reoccurring yeast is a symptom of HIV. She tested me for diabetes which came back negative, and then gave me a three day cream, a 6 week anti fungal, and a women's probiotic. None of this worked. The itching has gotten a bit better however, yet it still comes a bit around every period. My congestion comes and goes, where I will have phlegm and bad taste in my throat. As a side note, I am a vegetarian so I do eat mostly carbs (my vegetarian diet began about a month before the initial yeast infection). I also am a college student and drink alcohol. I am wondering if this is is a candidia overgrowth. Which then of course makes me think of HIV. Everything that I read says that yeast infections can be a sign of HIV in women and that candida is found mostly in HIV positive people. I am really just looking for what is causing all of this. Is it HIV, my diet/lifestyle? The weird thing is none of this started happening until after the sex. I am scared of infecting my partner with something (we use condoms though everytime) and wondering if I need to be tested again or if I should just go back to my doctor to examine some other causes (allergies/diet...). Thank you so much and any info is helpful.
I have a long story so my apologies in advance! In August of 2015 I got my first yeast infection, which is not odd because I live at the beach and am constantly in a bathing suit during the summer. I went to my gyno and she gave me diflucan and the symptoms went away. A couple months later I had sex where the condom broke. A few days after the sex, I experienced some burning of the skin down there. So i immediately freaked out and got tested for STD's, and everything came back negative. About a month after all of this, when my period came my skin down there became really itchy, just itchy though no other symptoms of vaginal yeast infection. Around this time I also started getting really congested in my sinuses. I constantly have mucous and phlegm in my throut. I went to my school doctor about five times and the gyno did not find any yeast, and the primary physician told me that I was congested because of cold/allergies. This past summer I was put on antibiotics thinking maybe it was a sinus infection, and that seemed to help a bit for a little but my symptoms returned. All of this spans over about seven months, in which I had 4 HIV antibody tests (all after three months of possible exposure), and a 4th gen. combo test. All negative. I was also tested for all other STD's and everything was negative. However, I still get the itching around my period every month. Before I went back to school I decided to get one more opinion from a gyno and she immediately looked and found external yeast, of course this freaked me out again because apparently reoccurring yeast is a symptom of HIV. She tested me for diabetes which came back negative, and then gave me a three day cream, a 6 week anti fungal, and a women's probiotic. None of this worked. The itching has gotten a bit better however, yet it still comes a bit around every period. My congestion comes and goes, where I will have phlegm and bad taste in my throat. As a side note, I am a vegetarian so I do eat mostly carbs (my vegetarian diet began about a month before the initial yeast infection). I also am a college student and drink alcohol. I am wondering if this is is a candidia overgrowth. Which then of course makes me think of HIV. Everything that I read says that yeast infections can be a sign of HIV in women and that candida is found mostly in HIV positive people. I am really just looking for what is causing all of this. Is it HIV, my diet/lifestyle? The weird thing is none of this started happening until after the sex. I am scared of infecting my partner with something (we use condoms though everytime) and wondering if I need to be tested again or if I should just go back to my doctor to examine some other causes (allergies/diet...). Thank you so much and any info is helpful.
Can you summarize your situation by answering this question. How long after your last unprotected sexual encounter did you have a test?
All those "symptoms" are meaningless if you had a negative result after waiting the proper amount of time, btw, so I skipped over all the "symptoms".
All those "symptoms" are meaningless if you had a negative result after waiting the proper amount of time, btw, so I skipped over all the "symptoms".
2 Comments
The last unprotected situation was about a year ago and I had tests starting at 3 months after all the way to 8 months after. Since I havent had any unprotected encounters.
You could have stopped testing more than 9 months ago. Didn't the clinics tell you that repeated testing is unnecessary?
If you can't accept the science then I recommend therapy so you can rid yourself of this totally unnecessary and unhappy worry.
If you can't accept the science then I recommend therapy so you can rid yourself of this totally unnecessary and unhappy worry.
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