Positive I'm positive

Hello doc! I am writing to you from the small country of Sweden. I've been acting quite foolish the last year and now I am convinced that I've caught HIV.

1. Last March I met a girl and we had unprotected sex. 2 and a half weeks later I noticed a small bump on my scrotum. It didn't really hurt nor scratch. Two days after this I developed a small red and raised rash consisting of 10-15 small spots/bumps on the lower part of my stomach and in the pubic region. These symptoms all disappeared in a week or so.

2. At the  same time as my symptoms appeared I started dating a new girl. We had unprotected sex a few times and a couple of weeks later she told me she had developed a rash. She thought it was some sort of bug bite. I never saw the rash since she had moved to Norway. I went to get tested for STD's (Chlamydia, ghonnarae, not HIV though) and the tests came back negative.

3. I met a new girlfriend and we had protected vaginal and unprotected oral sex. The last time we had sex she was on her period. After I came I continued to have sex with her for a little while. When I pulled out I noticed that the condom had slipped down a little. I'm not sure if she got any semen in her but I don't think that our mucous layers had any contact.
2 weeks after this she got sick with flu like symptoms.

4. A month ago I  ended up having unprotected sex with a friend of mine. 2 weeks later she got sick for two weeks. She had a sore throat, body aches - no other respiratory symptoms apart from maybe a runny nose.I also noticed some a blistered rash on her legs. It looked like mosquito bite that someone had scratched on.



Symptoms today:1. Palpable lymph nodes in my groin. Bilateral. About the size of a pea.
2. Red dots under the lateral side of both my eyes that come and go. It looks like a mild eczema.
3. Tinea Versicolor.
What do say about my situation and all of these symptoms? At this point I'm a real nerve wreck and I really hope I can go get tested soon.

Thank you

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the forum.  Thank you for your questions.

Heterosexually transmitted HIV is rare in northern Europe, including Sweden, except in immigrants from HIV-endemic countries, especially in Africa.  If you and your partners are Swedish, it is extremely unlikely any of them were infected or that you have caught HIV.  As we have said innumerable times on this forum (just scan recent threads for lots of examples), symptoms are almost never useful in judging whether or not someone has HIV.  Your symptoms really don't sound like HIV, but even if they did, things other than HIV are much more common causes of such symptoms.  Same for your partner's symptoms.

1) Almost everyone has small, pea-sized lumps in the groin.  If you had HIV related lymphadenopathy, you would have much larger nodes involving several areas, including the neck, under the arms, etc.  You also would have fever.

2,3) Neither such red dots nor tinea versicolor suggest someone has HIV.

Modern HIV tests are positive in newly infected people within 6 weeks; and if a combo test (combined antibody plus p24 antigen) is used, the results are virtually 100% reliable by 4 weeks.  So you need not wait any longer to be tested.  Visit a doctor or clinic and discuss your sexual activities and sympotms and have an HIV test.  You can expect it to be negative.

Good luck--  HHH, MD

[Jomajoma]

Thank you doctor for your quick reply!
The girls were all Swedish and I'm aware that HIV is very rare where I live and the risk of catching it is small. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I've been so uncareful... I hate myself for that now. Statistics won't help me when it comes to reality.
Well, well.. what's done is done and no matter if I'm positive or negative I've learned my lesson.
I have one more question. I read this post about a guy who is positive and had the same symptoms as me.. rash in pubic region and stomach and a bump on his scrotum - http://www.medhelp.org/posts/STDs/several-spider-or-mosquito-lookin-bumps-in-pubic-hair-area--MAYBE-WRONG-TOPIC-AREA/show/204966?personal_page_id=98695#post_1409831.
One more thing that worries me is that after sleeping with the first girl ALL the other three girls that I've slept with have got symptoms about 2 weeks later. Perfect ARS timing! I find it hard to believe that it could be anything than HIV.
Does any of this information change your answer?
Are there any contagious rashes (not HIV)?

I will ask no more questions since I'm aware that testing is the only way to find out whether I'm positive or not.

Thank you once again. I admire the work you are doing and I wish you all the best.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

That someone with HIV has the same symptoms as you is totally irrelevant.  Virtually all symptoms of HIV occur some, most, or all of the time in at least 100 different medical conditions if not thousands -- the large majority of which are a lot more common than HIV/AIDS.  I suggest you totally stop searching the web for HIV/AIDS symptoms.  You will only alarm yourself further.

"Statistics won't help me when it comes to reality."  All we can do is provide facts, statistics, and our professional judgment based on them and our clinical experience.  If your life is ruled by irrational, non-analytic forces that make you fearful of things that are statistically improbable, this forum can't help.

Feel free to post your test result if and when you do it.  Until then, I won't have any further comments or advice.