Worried about symptoms

Late last year (nov) I started having unproteted sex with a friend. I am a heterosexual male, no drug use.  She has only had 1 sexual partner her entire life and they were together for many years. They broke up but not because of infidelity (she is very confident about that). I am single and regulary get HIV tests if I change partners...I had one I July and December of 09...both negative.  In jan I came down with what I thought was the flu..fever/chills, fatigue, aches, sore throat. Fever lasted 2-3 days peaking at 101.5F. After 4 dys I went to walk in clinic. They tested for flu and it was neg.  They gave me a shot and antibiotic. Got better about 3 days later. As soon as I finished meds I got an extremely sore throat. No fever or other symptoms. After about 4 days it was still sore with white gunk on my tonsils. Went to family doc and he did a strep test which was neg. Prescribed a z pack. By day 2 of med I felt fine and tonsils were no longer inflammed.  On last day of med my throat got scratchy. Next day I was coughing up brown mucus and had another fever, peaking at 100.2, lasting about 2 days.  Went back to doc. He said not to worry. Give it a few days.  Felt fine after 3 days with no meds.  Now I have this   anxiety that I must have HIV because everything online seems to be suggest that my symptoms could be because of early stage of infection. I am in a panic and cannot function.  I feel fine physically but a wreck mentally. To top it off, as soon as I felt better, she came down with same symptoms, low fever, coughing mucus, headache, sore throat.. Additinally, her lymph nodes in neck were swollen. She went to doc, they gave antibiotic and she was fine about 4 days later.  Can you advise? Does it sound like either of us likely have HIV? I know you cannot give definitive answers but can you give any reassurance that this doesn't sound suspiciously like what your experience with HIV has shown you? Thank you.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the HIV forum.  Responding initially to the title of your question, before I read anything else:  As Dr. Hook and I have emphasized repeatedly, symptoms almost never are useful indicator of new HIV infection.  Test results always outweigh symptoms, as long as testing is done long enough after exposure (usually 4 or more weeks).  If you have had negative HIV tests that long or longer after the last possible exposure, it does not matter what symptoms you may describe.  Something other than HIV is the cause.

Now I have read the question itself.  Guess what?

Despite your fears, you had an almost zero risk exposure with respect to HIV.  And your symptoms really do not suggest HIV.  Among other things, HIV doesn't cause cough with mucus.  The on and off nature of your symptoms, with apparent transient response to antibiotics, also argues against HIV or any other virus.  No viral infection can respond at all to antibiotics.  Finally, it seems clear your doctor isn't worried about HIV.  And the fact that your partner has an illness similar to yours, with symptoms after yours, strongly suggests she caught something from you -- not the other way around.  There is no way she could have had HIV last November and only now developed symptoms caused by HIV.

Since you are nervous, talk to your doctor about having an HIV test.  You can expect it to be negative.

Finally, in the future, you might want to reconsider your HIV testing habits.  Getting tested after every new sex partner really doesn't make much sense, given the low risk of heterosexual transmission in this context.  Of course it would be different if you were selecting partners at high risk, like injection drug users, partners of known infected men, etc.  Barring that, the common sense approach is for dating singles to have routine STD and HIV tests from time to time, like once a year, rather than losing sleep over, or testing after, each new partnership.  And of course you should be using condoms for your new partnerships -- which if done consistently also allows safe deferal of HIV/STD testing.

I hope this helps.  Feel free to return to post your HIV test result.  It will be negative.

Regards --  HHH, MD

[pom2010]

Thank you Dr. for your time and reassurance. I have experiences massive anxiety from my relatively low risk exposure and since then have sought counseling to get to the core issue. Also, I finally built the courage to get tested again and it was NEGATIVE! Your probably not surprised:). More importantly, I wanted to post this for all other worriers like myself that self diagnosis of symptoms is a bad bad bad idea!! The mind is powerful and I had convinced myself that my symptoms could be nothing else but a sign of HIV infection...I was wrong. Yes, I had a sore throat, fever, aches, and what I assumed was a swollen neck gland (not confirmed by a doc). I even had stomachs cramps and diarrhea off an on for weeks which I'm now discovering is an artifact of my extreme anxiety. All of these symptoms are listed online as possible signs of HIV yet my test results are negative. The moral of the story is that getting tested, no matter how scary is the best option because the vague symptoms related to acute HIV infection are just too common to worry yourself crazy. Ironically, most of the physical signs I thought were due to HIV disappeared almost immediately after getting my results.  Please consider these words from a person who was 100% sure he was infected because he self diagnosed. You can't know till you test and life is too short to waste months in mental agaony over something that may not be real.  Mental disorders are just as real as HIV so see a mental health prof and get tested to ease your mind if you're worried. I know that's easier said than done but if it's any help..I have enjoyed living for the first time again since all this started and it was all due to having the courage to get tested and find out my fear was wrong! May peace be with you all!
  

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Thanks for the follow-up, and for the thanks.  Glad to have helped.