Going on 2 month roller-coaster

Over two-months ago I met someone online and went over to their house were we deep kissed and then we moved things into the bedroom and she performed oral sex one me.  However at the same time I found out that she was actaully a he.  I freaked out and left, but kept in touch with this person becuase I was freaked out about HIV.  I felt sick immediately and they very next day I am at the walk in clinic thinking I have thrush cause my tongue was white and mild sore throat more like a hard time swallowing my phelm.  So the clinic sends me to an ear nose and throat speclist the next day and my tonsils are huge so he puts me on antibotics, but after a week I saw no change so I went to the hospital and they changed my antibotics.  So I begin to really freak out and went to my regular doctor and told him the story leaving out the transexual part.  He gave me the HIV test (2weeks), put me on some anxiety drugs, and told me to go to the psch doctor, which I have been.  At week four the next thing i know they are doing is taking my tonsils and anoids out, which was a pleasure being over 30.  During the healing I did not think about hiv, but when I started getting better sure enough it seeped back into my head.  At day 60 the person told me she was negative after getting tested 4 days before (about 7 weeks after are meeting and she said she was neg 6 months before as well), but who knows if she is telling the truth, however she seems to be and really got pissed that I was blaming her for all this.  Anyhow at day 60 I noticed my armpits, lower groin area (inner thiegh), and neck hurting. There doesn't seem to be any bumps, but I also fill confused and have body aches as well my hands keep going numb when I sleep.  So am still scared like crazy.  I never have had any fever and I had neg test at 7.5 weeks (elisa full tub of blood).  Also during this time I have had a sore chest that is usaully just in the morning and I seem to cough and blow blood out of my nose in the morning.  Dry air I assume.   I just don't fill right and feel like something is invading my body.  I know systems don't tell all but with that what is the likely hood of having HIV?

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Relax.  You are unnecessarily worked up over this and have had too much medical evaluation for it already.  You can't get HIV by receiving oral sex; or, if it occurs, it is so rare that nobody has ever been proved to be infected that way.  Second, as I have said many times on this forum, symptoms are never a reliable indicator for HIV infection--and your symptoms don't sound like HIV anyway.  Finally, a negative HIV test 7 weeks after exposure is close to 100% reliable.

Bottom line:  If you turn up with a positive HIV test someday, it will not be from this event.  Your risk is greater of dying of some accident or other in the next week.

For more information about all this, search the threads and archives for "HIV anxiety", "ARS symptoms", ""HIV transmission risk", "fellatio", and "time to positive HIV test".

Follow up with your own doctors if your symptoms persist.  Best wishes--

HHH, MD

[nsns]

Your chance of getting HIV from Oral is like 1 in a googol, thats 100 O's behind a 1.

As far as you finding out she was a he, that would freak me out too!

[whyme2006]

actually, according to Dr. Bob (thebody.com) the chances are more like 1 in 20,000!!!

[Imdumb]

The odds are not possible to calculate since no one have even been proven to get HIV be reveiving oral. The 1 in 20000 probably refers to giving oral, not receiving. I am kind of a worry wart, but even I refuse to worry about something that has probably never happened in 40 million HIV cases over 25 years.

[Imdumb]

The odds are not possible to calculate since no one have even been proven to get HIV be reveiving oral. The 1 in 20000 probably refers to giving oral, not receiving. I am kind of a worry wart, but even I refuse to worry about something that has probably never happened in 40 million HIV cases over 25 years.

[whyme2006]

tell that to Dr. Bob-

POSTED 19 Mar 2006: on thebody.com

"A Huge Huge Result!!! Oh My!!
Mar 19, 2006

Hey Doc, thanks for posting this story. Could be a real help to many!

I WAS one of the worry wells on this forum for the past 6 months absolutely convinced I had aquired HIV by unprotected insertive oral sex with "worker"...."

Dr. Bob response:  "The estimated per-act risk for acquiring HIV from unprotected insertive oral with a partner confirmed to be HIV positive is 0.5 per 10,000 exposures."

[Imdumb]

THIs is a theoretical risk. It is "possible" to get it maybe if the giver was gushing blood and the inserter had open sores. That doesn't mean that it have ever happend. You would be hard pressed to find documented evidence that it happens. If you didn't see blood,the risk was zero. You can worry about it if you choose to, but no one gets HIV that way.

[monkeyflower]

That quote is taken entirely out of context. Here's a little more info from that post:

"The estimated per-act risk for acquiring HIV from unprotected insertive oral with a partner confirmed to be HIV positive is 0.5 per 10,000 exposures. Your estimated risk would have been even less because you did not know the HIV serostatus of your "worker." With risk statistics like that, whether the source was positive or not, testing would not make sense on multiple levels."

I suck at math, but I believe that statistic translates to risks of one in over 50 years of oral once a day, every day, with an HIV positive person - and even that's really stretching it. Come on. You cannot possibly think those are bad odds. If you do, then I imagine you never leave your house, because the risks are much higher that you will be killed crossing the street or in a car accident. And as I noted before, you're at much higher risk of dying from just about any other disease than you are of contracting HIV. But you seem to only hear what you want to hear - what confirms your worst fears. I think perhaps it would be a good idea to consider seeking counseling.

[Willl]

I believe that estimate originates from this research paper:

http://ww2.aegis.org/files/AskDoc_refs/varghese2002-29-1.pdf

Note consistent use of terms like "assumed" and "best guess". (Pats self on back for bringing the funk)

[ToDoorNot]

Hi, I had hijacked a thread earlier and sorry that I am doing it again. Sorry to original poster ,but i am still stuck in Tokyo ,where i dont know the language, no frends and no credit card. So,please bear with me. I had fingered a thai sex worker. At 40 days , took a herpes test in tokyo. doc insists that it is IgG and test result < 8 is 100% negative. my result came back as < 4 after 2 weeks. doc says i can rest assured that i dont have anything. can i rely on this kind of test, is herpeselect the only good test and can values like this vary based on the type of test? please answer my query , its freaking me out. i had no symtoms (symptoms) what so ever, except for a white patch on the finger i had used , which i think is an indication that some infection might have occured. this white patch is what is bothering me after i read this - http://www.medhelp.org/perl6/STD/messages/2419.html. thanks in advance, i will donate to this as soon as i get back home in 2 weeks. please bear with me, thank you and please be honest. i dont need any psycological comfort, just trying to know if i can rely on these testing or only herpeselect. my std/hiv came back all -ve at 70 days.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

OK.  A "white patch" on your finger does not suggest herpes.  Almost certainly you can rely on the negative blood test results.  But if in doubt, show the finger lesion to a health professional.

HHH, MD

[whyme2006]

yes
your math is basically correct, however:
that doesnt mean you CAN have insertive oral once a day with an HIV+ person for 49y 11mo 29d and be worry free until that last day! - the odds mean that some people will NEVER get it EVER and some people will get it THE VERY FIRST TIME THEY DO IT !!!  that means the event has some RISK - if you choose to ignore the risk, fine - if you justify the risk in your own mind by comparing it to being hit by a car or contracting cancer, fine - BUT PLEASE DO NOT TELL OTHER PEOPLE THAT THERE IS NO RISK - A RISK DOES EXIST - no documented cases DOES NOT MEAN IT DOESNT HAPPEN - when people have sex they usually engage in more than one type of sex and if someone gets hiv then it is attributed to the "higher" risk event but it could have well been transmitted via insertive oral - no one knows for sure

no one knew what hiv was in the mid-70's but it happened,
no one knows about hiv transmission via insertive oral (no documented) but it happens

[Imdumb]

OK- if you turn up HIV positive you can have the first ever documented case in history. Also, a plane might hit another plane over your house tonight and kill you. At least there is evidence that that has happened. Don't confuse possible with likey or even a remote chance. If the odds of something are 1 in a trillion, it is still "possible". But I would prefer not to waste my time waiting for it to happen. Maybe you do. That is your choice.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

The risks of insertive oral sex are low enough that for practical purposes they can be disregarded.  If all anal and vaginal sex disappeared and only oral sex remained, HIV would disappear; oral sex is too low in transmission efficiency to sustain transmission in a population.  That is, I agree in general with monkeyflower's and imdumb's perspective and disagree with whyme's.

In any case, I suggest ceasing the debate/discussion.  Neither side is going to change the others' mind.

HHH, MD

[whyme2006]

ok-

shutting up - no more gum flapping from me
will wait for test results

[crazydude06]

Doc thanks for answering my question.  I agree and hope that this is all in my end.  However to do have one more question.  I have noticed little black dots all over my body, not in clusters, some raised and some not.  Does not look like a freakle sense they are raised. I am 10 weeks today, what does the HIV/ARS rash look like?