Please help! I am new to this website but I need help on HIV question

[Tonypr24]

Hi Doctor

I got sick on Sept. 28th of this year with flu like symptoms with but I didn't think much until last week when I found out that my wife has been cheating on me. This brought allot of concerns for my health.  I feel I might have gotten hiv from her sleeping aroun.  Since most people have a particular encounter that they can go by and figure out their time to test at the right time, I don't since it was my wife and we had sex regularly, I can not  pick and point to a specific time since it could have happend anytime.

I guest my question to you is.  If I first got sick with flu like symptoms on Sept. 28th with fever, sore throat( still to today), diarrhea( for 2 weeks), lost 10lb, bronchitis (still to day).  Can this be ARS? And if so do ARS mean that you are going from negative to positive?   When one is experiencing symptoms does that mean your body is fighting the infection and you start to produce antibodies?

I got a negative test on Oct. 18th and I would like to think that if I was sick because of HIV then 3 weeks from the day first got sick would be enough time to produce antibodies.  Please would you comment on that?

Thank you

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

You can relax.  Could those symptoms be ARS?  Yes.  But ARE they due to ARS?  Almost certainly not.  For every heterosexual, non-injection-drug-using person with such symptoms, probably fewer than 1 in 1000 has ARS.  Anyway, your negative HIV test proves without doubt your symptoms were not due to ARS.  Antibodies start to be produced about the time ARS symptoms start, and enough antibodies are present to make the test positive within the next 2 weeks.  So your negative result 3 weeks after your symptoms started is virtually 100% reassurance you don't have HIV.

Anyway, unless your wife's lover(s) is/are bisexual men or injection drug users, she almost certainly isn't infected.

Good luck--  HHH, MD

[Tonypr24]

Thank you so much for your kind respond.   Do you see a need for me to test in the future if I meet someone I consider to start a new relationship with?  I wouldn't want to get anybody sick.