Conclusive testing?

Hello doctors. About 7 months ago, I had unprotected oral sex (both receiving and giving) and protected vaginal sex with a very high end female escort in London. It was not my finest moment to say the least, but I was going through a rough patch. About two weeks after I began to be concerned I had made a big mistake and started to worry about STDs, especially HIV. I asked the owner of the service if the escort had been tested, and he indicated that all of her recent clinic tests at the time were clear (which could have been right after my encounter or perhaps a couple weeks before - it was hard to get a clear understanding of this). I have been following on their site and she continued to be available up until today, and I assume that her testing is routine (and assume that they would never allow someone who was positive with anything to continue to work.) As for me I contacted Rapid Screening here in the US and followed their testing suggestions through Labcorp: tested immediately for both HIV 1 and 2 for antibody (I think they also do both antibody and antigen) and also did PCR/DNA testing, then repeated the same at 8 weeks, then repeated the antibody testing (again think antigen too?) at 12 weeks and 25-26 weeks.  This all made sense to me given I have read on uptodate.com that you should follow those dates and test immediately, 8 weeks, 12 and 24. All of my tests were negative. And in addition, I don't believe I ever developed any symptoms, but obviously, I'm not a doctor so what do I know.

I have only recently become aware of your site. It seems that perhaps I have overtested. Obviously at this point I am fine with that and fine if I have been overly cautious as long as everything is ok, so I just wanted to make sure that based on my exposure, circumstances and, most importantly, my test results that I have proven 100%, without a doubt, that I did not acquire HIV?

Thank you so much for your help.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to our Forum.  I'll try to help. As of your 8 week testing you can be confident that you did not get HIV from your single, rather low risk encounter.  Tests are reliable at 8 weeks an there is no need for testing beyond that.

While I don’t mean to be overly disparaging, I'll also point out that since the lab is paid based on the testing that it performs, it shouldn’t be surprising that they take a conservative approach to testing, recommending lots of testing/

Please, be confident that you did not get HIV. There is no further testing needed. EWH

[londsam]

Thank you so much for your help. Yes, I agree with your remark about the lab. In retrospect I feel foolish about that and everything. I am in a serious relationship now, and I haven't disclosed this (and don't plan to). So based on your response, I can go ahead with unprotected sex with my partner?

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Correct. EWH