News Article has me terrified, Please Help

Hello Dr. Hook and Dr. HHH,
I posted a question on your forum back in August and your advice was more helpful than you will ever know; it helped me get through a very hard time in my life and I am so grateful. I have moved on with my life without worry from my past sexual expeirences, however back in november I was really drunk and I ending up making out (deep kissing) a complete stranger for about a half hour. What worries me is that I saw her making out with another guy later on that night!!! So obviously she is permiscuous.

I have been getting anxiety about the possibilty of transmission from deep kissing, and it was only made worse by this recent news article...
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_can-hiv-spread-through-saliva-case-has-doctors-thinking_1505249

Now I understant that saliva is not normally able to transmit the disease unless there is significant blood present. However this article states that it was able to and that the infected boy had a "high viral load" in his saliva.

My question is....Can having a high viral load, also mean that a person's saliva can have a higher viral load than normal and thus make it infectious?
Also... During the seroconversion stage, i read that there can be 800 times as much virus in the person blood, does that mean the saliva is equally increased in concentration?
Lastly...For any infectious material to enter my mouth, would there absolutely have to be a cut in my mouth big enough for me to clearly notice it?

Also could you please give this article a quick look and tell me if you think there is any credibilty to it??
Thank you so much for all of your help and I will eagarly await your response,

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome back to the forum.

I read the story you cited.  That's all it is -- a newspaper story that reports what an infected person claimed was his source of catching HIV.  There is no evidence in the story that other transmission modes were not investigated.  Even if transmission by saliva did occur, there wouldn't be a news story unless it were rare.  It remains true that transmission by saliva either does not occur at all; or if it does, it is much too rare to worry about.  And catching HIV by mouth itself is rare; swallowing infected blood would be a fairly low risk exposure.

This is not something you should worry about.  As long as you avoid unprotected high risk sex and injection drug use with needle sharing, you will never catch HIV and it should not be on your mind.  That's all I'll have to say about it.

HHH, MD

[Scaredd12345]

I thank you for your response. I understand that I should not worry about it, but I honestly can not help myself sometimes. I have seen a therapist for my excessive anxiety over HIV fears and it does help to an extent. But I still feel this way when I have even the slightest possible risk exposures.

I dont mean to pester you about this as I know you are a busy man, but could you please just clarify for me....1) For any mouth transmission to occur, would there have to be an obvious cut or sore in the mouth to allow entry?? 2) Is an infected person's saliva relatively constant in its minute presence of HIV, or can it increase when the person has an increased viral load??

I know it seems like I should not think about this, and I am not at risk from deep kissing a stranger, but I honestly feel like answering these questions could help ease alot of my doubts and help me finally move on from all this.

I thank you for your time.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Saliva inactivates HIV; that's why even saliva mixed with blood carries little or no HIV risk.  Therefore, elevated viral load probably has no effect on the amount of infectious virus in saliva.  Even with sores in the mouth, HIV is rarely acquired by mouth.

The thing about anxiety is that facts alone do not solve the problem.  Almost always people in your state of mind come up with "yes but" or "what if" scenarios that seem to imply there might be some risk after all.  Trust me on this:  there is nothing you can think of or ask that would change my opinion or advice:  that you are not at risk, period.  Therefore, I will have nothing more to say.

[Scaredd12345]

Thank you so much for your advice.
I know that my true problem (like most on this forum) is anxiety and the only thing that helps me are straight forward definitive statements from a knowledgable person like yourself.
God bless.