Question for Teak et. al

Dear All:  I know one can "never determine ARS from symptoms," but please bear with me.  # 1)  2-3 years ago, I had a period of night sweats where I woke up and was quite sweaty for several nights running.  In retrospect, it seemed cold in the room, and I remember climbing under a heavy cover.  Whilst I was uncomfortable, I figured that maybe my body was sweating to give off heat to compensate for the cold, or something like that.  I don't recall having any other classic ARS symptoms - I don't recall a fever above 100 fahrenheit, nor rash, nor lymph node, muscle weakness issues etc.  Could this have been related to ARS or HIV in some way?  I am asking this b/c in my wilder, pre-married days, I visited many escorts ladies.  I always used a condom for intercourse, although one time several years ago I remember the condom coming off for few minutes before I discovered it.  What are the chances that my night sweats could be somehow related to HIV symptoms - I think the night sweats were some months or years after the condom incident, but my memory is foggy on the exact dates.


#2)  Also, these days, it seems like every few months or so I go through a period where I have these intense, semi-awake dreams, and these also cause me some mild sweating.  I wake up in the morning exhausted and sort of a little bit dizzy, although no fever or anything like that.   Could this be HIV side effects?

I should add that I recently had a T4 test, with Absolute Lymphpcytes 1539, T4 50% and T4 Absolute 770.

Please, Teak or anyone, if you could elaborate with some expertise on night sweats and ARS, I'd be so grateful!!

[Teak]

1. Did the condom come off when withdrawing?
2. If someone is going to have ARS it happens 2-4 weeks post exposure and lasts 1-2 weeks.  Your symptoms don't sound like ARS.

[anxiousinuk]

Condom did come off, was inside her for a couple minutes before realizing it, and then stopped immediately.  This was all so long ago that i don't recall the exact timing between the incident and the night sweats, may even have been months or years after the incident that the sweats happened.  I am pretty certain though that I did not have any other symptoms besides the night sweats - I definitely cannot ever recall having had swollen lymph glands, body Rash, nor can I recall any high fevers above 100 degrees.  Still, I am one of those people who is always inclined to suspect the worst, hence have been wracked by anxiety since seeing "night sweats" and "HIV/infectious diseases" mentioned in the same breadth on the internet....

[HSci34]

Your T4 tests is absolutely meaningless.  So are the symptoms you are presenting (even though they're scaring you).  The truth is, so many things can cause many of the symptoms of ARS that are far, far, far, FAAAAR more common than HIV.  This has been studied and people who present with traditional symptoms of ARS, very few actually end up actually testing positive (just goes to show how much more common the other things are).  I know it's hard, but you have to put the symptoms out of your mind.

Now, let's see - your exposure is a single unprotected exposure to vaginal intercourse.  

1. The most important thing to remember is the vast majority of sex workers in North America and other developed areas of the world are in fact, not infected with HIV.  Regardless of your exposure, if she was not infected (which is overwhelmingly likely), then you had no risk to begin with.

2.  If she was infected, you must learn that HIV is a very difficult virus to transmit.  The CDC estimates (based on numerous studies involving thousands of people) that transmission occurs around once per 1000 exposures.  That is very low, which is why usually it takes multiple exposures to become infected.

3. During HIV infection, if you are one of the people who gets ARS (some people don't), then you would experience it between 10 days - one month following exposure.    Regardless, even if this was the case for you, it doesn't tell you ANYTHING at all.

Go and get an HIV test.  You can be highly confident it will be negative for the reasons I mentioned above.

[anxiousinuk]

Thanks HSci34.   The exposure was actually with a Russian escort, but still, I take your point, very small chance she was infected, and even smaller that one time exposure passes it.  So, I know I am being somewhat (ok very) irrational here.  On top[ of that, I was reading some posts today from Dr. Handley himself to other people, and I see him say at least a couple of times that even when true ARS occurs, it is almost always accompanied by high fever over 100 degress fahrenheit.  I definitely did not have fever, I know that.   Guess I'm letting the irrational side of the brain overwhelm the commonsense side.  Thanks all!

[IdontKNOWdude]

Dude, might as well you take HIV test. Since it was 2-3 years ago, you can test anytime now. I wish you the best !

[Teak]

People can and have contracted HIV on their first exposure. The only way to know that you have been exposed is by testing. As you were told you can test now and get your conclusive test result.