Kissing with cuts

Dear Doctor HHH,

In your recent answer to a qustion concerning the risk from kissing with blood in mouth you stated:Kissing carries no significant risk of HIV or other STDs, with or without blood exposure. I suppose the risk in theory is a little higher but still leaves virtually zero risk.

Ok, what about the risk to a person having a cut in his/her mouth? (not to the person being exposed to blood and having intact mouth). What is the Hiv risk from kissing to the person being kissed but having a cut in his/her mouth?

I kissed with a guy (and I am a male) in the afternoon and then in the evening I saw a cut in my mouth which might or might not had been there while I kissed? (probably a cut from chewing and accidentaly biting myself to the inside of the cheek).

Somehow I think what if he had a cut too and some blood from his mouth had a direct access to my bloodstream via my mouth cut ?

Thank you

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

HIV is never transmitted by kissing, cuts or no cuts.  Saliva is not very infectious, even for a person with HIV infection.  And unless the guy is an injection drug user or bisexual, the chance he has HIV is pretty close to zero anyway.  Safe sex means knowing your partners and using condoms for vaginal or anal sex.  That's all; everything else is safe.

Good luck--  HHH, MD

[silviotoni]

Thank you sir.
I understand that saliva is not very infectious. But I figured if a person has a cut in his mouth then we are not talking about saliva any more, but rather saliva+blood. And if the other person has an open access to his bloodstream via his mouth cut then we have the closed circuit. Right?

Thank you.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

You're talking about a theoretical risk that has never been known to actually occur.  Don't worry about it.

HHH, MD

[silviotoni]

Thank you doctor. Good luck to you.I am amazed with you altruism and perseverance in helping people.
Tonis

[salesrep2005]

I've recently heard that kissing risks could be magnified by viral loads that are high due to recent infection - Dr. does this make any sense to you or is it still considered extremely low to non existent possibility. Thanks again for your wisdom and for giving us worriers ( spell check ?)  some sense of sanity.

[skerdstraght68]

theorectical and probable not really possible