HIV/AIDS and birthmarks

Hi Doctor,

Earlier this week I had a one night stand with a fairly promiscous woman in Shanghai (I'm on business travel here this week).  We had protected intercourse several times and unprotected oral sex (blow job and cunnilingus).  When I woke up in the morning I noticed that she had 4 or 5 round like birth marks on her thighs and calves.  They were almost perfect circles  and fairly similar in size (perhaps inch in diameter) and they very definitely seemed to be natural as opposed to a stamp or tattoo.  Some were dark red, similar in color to a baby's birth mark, and the others were faded in varying degrees as if they were just starting to appear or maybe disappear.  She didn't speak very much English and I know no Mandarin so when I pointed and asked she basically said that she didn;t know how to explain them in English.

My question to you is... is this symptomatic of HIV/AIDs or some type of other sexual disease?  As you can imagine I am very freaked out over it.  Thanks.

APJtraveler

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to the answer. As I was reading your  question my reaction was the same as chinahand's although I was unaware to the proper term for it.  The lesions you describe are quite typical of this process and are in no way suggestive of HIV. The rashes of HIV are very different and irregular in appearance.

Just for completeness sake, I will add that your condom protected intercourse and oral sex are not meaningful risks.  You have nothing to worry about from this exposure.

Take care.  EWH

[chinahand]

I'm not the doctor (nor any sort of scientific/medical expert) but I have lived in China for quite a while.
Sounds like moxibustion to me.  It's a Chinese medicine treatment often given in conjunction with accupuncture.  A small amount of alcohol is placed in a glass tumbler and ignited.  The tumbler is quickly turned over and placed on your skin.  The resulting vacuum creates hickey-like spots.  The theory, I believe, is that the suction pulls the bad energy out of your system, or something like that....
Every single day in China I see at least one person walking around who looks like they were recently attacked by a giant octopus because of these purple/red circles.
The only difference from what you describe is that usually the circles are more like 2 or 3 inches in diameter.
My apologies to the doctors for interjecting.

[APJtraveler]

Chinahand, wow, maybe that's what this was.  Thanks very much for your insight.  But why would she only have it one her legs? Looking at pics on the web it appears that most people have it on their back primarily?

And Doctor, if you could weigh in, I'd feel a lot more at ease knowing that birthmarks are not symptoms of HIV/AIDS.  Reason being, I read somewhere that as one's immune system is compromised with the disease, increasing numbers of birthmarks are possible?  Perhaps this could be moxibustion as Chinahand has said, but can you confirm that a "break out" of birth marks is not a symptom? Thanks.