Worried beyond belief

Hi All,

My story and background.  I had an unprotected encounter with a girl I met at a club and I dont know her HIV status.  This happened on Sept 9th.  I am 27 heterosexual male that lives in the US.  After one week exactly, I had swollen nodes all up in the back of neck on both sides and I felt pain or just an uncomfortable feeling under my armpits...I was freaking out so much that I decided to get tested at the 3 week mark on Sept 28th.  And I tested for all the Hep's and Syphillis (syphilis)...all came back negative.  Now, 5 weeks after exposure, I have a soar throat that hurts when I swallow and it seems as its on the right side.  I still have nodes swollen but only on the left side on the back of the neck and also under the chin/jaw.  One of the nodes under the jaw is huge...all the others are regular pea shaped size.  

I am waiting for the 6 week mark so I can test again.  My question is, has anyone seen or heard anyone test positive after a negative 3 week or earlier mark test?  

Please let me know.  Thanks.

[sparkeler]

Were your "swollen" lymph nodes confirmed by a doctor?  Highly unlikely you contracted hiv from a one time encounter w/a woman.  Female to male transmission is extremely low, 1 in 2000, i think, for one time encounter.

[redskin786]

Yes, they were confirmed by a doctor...Im also feeling weary and tired lately but from what I get, are all the symptoms supposed to happen all at once?  Cause I heard some cases where people get some or only few and turn positive...I just dont know what to think at this point...I understand that the odds are on my side, but someone wins the pot sometimes...I hope to god that its not me.

[socgirl]

the 3 week test is pretty reliable.  I've heard of rare cases of people not testing postive for up to 6 months, however in those cases...many of the patients have had multiple partners, so there's no telling when they contracted the virus or who they contracted it from.  In your case, a one time encounter, is very low-risk for HIV.  If the 3 week test was negative, I would go with that.  Get tested at six weeks if it will make you feel better.  Your symptoms could be caused by several things such as some other virus, or stress might be the likely cause.  It's amazing what stress will do to your body.  It seems your'e so worried about contracting HIV, that you're getting all these symptoms that maybe you wouldn't be paying attention to, if you weren't worried about something.  Maybe go to the doc and have them do a complete blood count to try and detect if something else is going on like a cold or something.  Relax.  good luck.

[mpo131]

Three weeks is too soon to be reliable.  If you want to be reasonably certain, test at six weeks.  Completely certain, test at 12 weeks.

[redskin786]

Thank you for your comments...I hear that the average days to sero-convert is 22 days so thats why I decided to test at 3 weeks.  But the docs say get tested from 4-6 weeks or 6-8 weeks for a more reliable result.  They think that the 3 week mark is too early and they wont put a percentage of accuracy at the 3 week mark.  What do you make of this?  

I have an appt next friday to get my 6 weeks test done.

[redskin786]

I have in the past but I know its not Mono...anyone have any thoughts on the %'s of testing...whether its within the 3 week window to the 6 week window...we all know that the 12-13 week mark is good.

Please let me know.

[spade22]

Hi,

have you been tested for mono (glandular fever)?  Your symptoms sound very much like this.

Take care

[redskin786]

does anyone know the reason why 3 weeks is too soon to detect when they say that the average amount of time that someone will detect antibodies is around the 22 day mark.  Wouldnt that mean that some turn earlier than 22 days and some after?  So wouldnt 3 weeks count as a certain percentage of reliability?  Say 50% or so?  But then from 4-6 weeks, the % is said to be 85-95% certain...does anyone have any ideas on this or thoughts that they can share?  

Im looking for theories and/or just poking around.  Please let me know your thoughts on this.  Thanks.

[Xhost]

Hey Redskin,

Glad to see you found the forum. Sorry for your anxiety now. I was once right were you are at, so I know how it feels.

First, I wanted to ask what you meant by an unprotected encounter? Oral sex? Vaginal? I only ask because so many, myself included, come to the forums thinking the worst about an oral sex encounter. And then we learn that the odds of catching HIV from oral sex are astronomically high against it. In fact, no case of HIV has ever been proven to have been caused by HIV, as the doc would say.

In any event, I too once searched around for percentages associated with testing at each week. I never did find anything that I would consider conclusive, though the doc does quote stats from time to time. You might want to search the HIV Prevention forum on the following key phrase: "time to HIV test". Hopefully, in at least one of the threads that will be returned, you should find some discussion of the percentages of conclusiveness associated with each week after the incident that prompted the testing.

The problem with any stats that you might see is that many people who come in for testing don't do it because of a single, well remembered event. Thus, if they do wind up positive, they find it difficult to point to any single incident as the the one that did it. At least, this is my understanding of the problem.

Suffice to say that while 3 weeks may be a bit too soon to be sure, 6 - 8 weeks, according to the doc on this site (who seems to know what he's talking about), is plenty long enough to get a conclusive result, expecially given your "risk" event - probably not so risky after all, though I do not know all of the details. Also, Mass. state says six weeks is all that is needed to obtain a conclusive result. Other sites say longer, up to 12 weeks, but I do know that the doc here maintains that he has never tested someone at 6 weeks (I believe this is the time frame) who was negative who later showed up positive.

Ok, hope this helps. Let me know if can be of further assistance.

[anotherdummy]

3 weeks is not conclusive.  Seems the average time for antibodies is ~25 days lower end ~9days and higher ~35 days, hence a 6 week recommendation.  Personally I went 8 for personal confirmation.

Vaginal sex is low risk so the odds are heavily in your favor, even with a 3 week negative.  Personally, I am more comfortable with the 6-8 week suggestion.

You will be ok.

[lexman]

Hello Everyone;

Well how to start I am really freaking out. I had protected sex,with condom oral than vaginal with a prostitute on Monday Dec 4th. The only thing I can think of is that the girl put on a condom with her mouth. But again i think she did it right. I felt worried right after wards, but kind of tried not to think about it. But few days later I developed these strange symptoms : Very tired, lack of energy, sore throat, my joints hurt in my legs and wrists,especially my knees and ankles I have these weird sensations. I just feel week as if I have a cold or flue, I don't have fever though, but inside of my mouth it feels warmer then usual. And these couple of days I really don't feel like eating. I feel so depressed disoriented, and tired, mostly tired everything hurts I feel sick, like it is a flue but nothing coming out to indicate it is a flue or a cold, feels exactly like it. I feel very cold all the time, I try not to move around much. Even hot shower doesn't warm me up much. I don't know maybe it is all to do from reading because I read all there on line I think on acute HIV symptoms. Some sites state symptoms as early 2-4 days. Some say it takes 2-4 weeks. I have no idea. I just feel sick.  Is it my head???
I am just going nuts!!!

Please advise.

thank you