Kissing HIV partner

[unwanted decision]

Three and a half weeks ago I was a club dancing and another individual began dancing with me on the dancer floor.  After dancing for a couple of minutes the other person began kissing me by placing their tongue into my mouth.  (I have a problem with bleeding gums sometimes after I brush and floss and sometimes inflammation of the gums.)  After dancing we became more aquainted and kissed once or twice more in the same manner as previously described.  I did not notice any blood but we had both been driking quite a lot.  As I was getting ready to go home for the night, one of the individual's friends told me that the individual had just recently tested positive for HIV.  About three days later I began having symptoms such as mild fever, headache, dry throat, loss of appetite, and trouble sleeping. A day later after these symptoms I had a severe case of diarrohea.  I have been under a great deal of stress over the incident and the symptoms.  The symptoms and the proximity of the encounter seem too much like a coincidence. What are your thoughts?  Could this be a rare HIV kissing case?

The day prior to the encounter I had a blood test done as a routine check at work which came up negative on the 20th of March.  Prior to the blood test I had not engaged in any risky activity within the previous months.

I am getting another HIV test done this week and again in two to three more weeks.  I try to think positive but because of the other individual's HIV status and the symptoms, I'm already conviced that I may be going through the seroconvesion process of HIV and a possible positive reading from the HIV test terrifies me to death.  I realize that this probably sounds pretty pathetic

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Kissing never transmits HIV, regardless of blood in the mouth or anything else.  You symptoms came on too soon to be due to HIV, and they don't sound like HIV anyway.  You did not need HIV testing and don't need any more testing.  (They call HIV and other infections STDs because they are transmitted by sex; and kissing doesn't count as sex from a disease transmission standpoint.)  On top of all that, the odds that a randomly selected woman on a dance floor has HIV are extremely low.

But if this reassurance isn't sufficient (it almost never is for people in your situation) and you will sleep better knowing you have a negative test result, feel free to get tested again.

HHH, MD

[aloha37]

I had a friend with known AIDS that spit a drop of saliva into my eye when he was laughing about 15 years ago.  I didn't get HIV, didn't get tested at the time, and thought nothing more of it until your post made me think of it today... and I'm a nurse(as was he) so I did consider the risk at the time.  I personally wouldn't think twice of kissing someone with HIV.  If it were that easy to contract it, we would all have it by now.  Hope this helps a little.

[unwanted decision]

Thanks for the advise and support.