- in a public toilet of a Night club ... the reason to mention this is because I did not have the opportunity to wash until approx. 6 hours later... not that washing helps in preventing anything... but just wanted to mention it...
Any way, exactly 8 days later, I woke up with an itchy red rash on my neck
, no pain, no fever... just the rash similar to heat rash. I went to the doctor and he gave me some sort of hydrocotisone cream and some allergy tablets. The rash subsided after 4 days. I felt OK and tried to forget about the incident. However, 4 days later I woke up in the middle of the night with a mild sweat on my neck and chest. I had never had this before. The following day a mild pain on my muscles and joints (shoulders and fingers in particular) started to develop. The pain continued for the rest of the days until the fith week post exposure. The pain was now on my lower back and neck. During this time a new rash developed on both my arms but this time the rash was more like mosquito bites, non blanch nor itchy... just with a burning sensation from time to time. I also noticed that the original rash had come back around my neck, similar to heat rash again but this time did not itch, it only had a burning sensation like on my arms... I had a couple of mild night sweats but I never felt any high temperature.
Three days ago, reaching my sixth week after exposure, I noticed that my tonsils were a bit swollen and that I had a mild rash (like heat rash) on my cheeks. This rash seems to appear after I take a shower and dissapears an hour later.
I went back to the doctor but he did not seem to see anything strange with my two types of rash nor the swollen tonsils. I have made an appointment with a different doctor and I intend to take the HIV next week... in the meantime... I feel hopeless, disappointed with myself, frustrated and don't know what to do... Many thanks for reading this and any comment/ help would be very much appreciated. God bless.
Un update
I took a HIV test at week 7 post exposure and came back negative. My symptoms, however, never improved: my night sweats got worse, I started to feel a pain in my groin and the ache in my lower back and joints never disappeared. The rash on my arms subsided a little but my heat-like rash on my neck come and went until approx week 9 post exposure. I took the test again and came back negative. To cut the story short, by week 12 all my symptoms were gone except for the swollen lymphs but to be on the safe side, I took the HIV test on week 14 again which came back NEGATIVE, Thank God.
Anyway, I'm writing this to say thank you for being part of this nice forum. I hope that this "happy ending" in my story may at least help those going through similar situations to get the courage to go and get tested or to be optimistic and not fall into despair as I did during the last three months NAIVELY thinking that "my life was over". I said naively because life is not over as we all know ... but you feel it is because it takes some balls to deal with the turn it takes. (I did not have sex with my wife during this time and every time I saw my son I could only think of how stupid I had been that night).
My point here is that it is true what they tell you again and again in this forum : having one of ALL the symptoms does not mean you are infected. So do not let your head play tricks on you.
I have not come back to this forum to preach nor do not I want to sound patronising here, forgive me if I do but I hope this story also helps those who, like me, sometimes live life to the fullest without thinking of the consequences on those who love you. (Something I did not mention in my previous message: "the girl" i met on my drunken night was in fact a group of girls and boys with whom, without going into more details here, I did several stupidly unprotected things.)
The endless loss of sleep, the constant pain in my bones and joints and the thought of having to tell my wife what had happened have made think, that that night wasn't worth it. If you did not stop reading two minutes ago, good luck and good bye.
Sonny