This is a long one, but bear with me, it's not gonna be boring.
Hi, I am a 28 year old male Software Engineer. I have suffered from anxiety of contracting HIV in the past but this is the most toughest episode ever. I am unable to meet a therapist at the moment since we are under lock down, the same reason I cannot get tested.
Eight weeks ago I went to an ********* spa (lot of herbal oils) to get a deep tissue back massage since I have been from a disc herniation for 2 years and buttocks pain after a gym accident(while doing deadlift). The therapist was 40-50 year old woman and she was wearing lot of makeup and her face was also a bit scary lol. She was fully clothed all the time and looked a bit fat. She, the manager and the receptionist all claimed that she had worked as an assistant to an ********* doctor for 12 years and that's how she learnt the skill. But for some reason by looking at her, I feel that she is a former prostitute, maybe became a massage therapist later. That is the origin of my fear. This spa is a male-to-male, female-to-female for full body massage. But when I told about my back pain issue the manager recommended her saying she is the most experienced. At first she was a bit hesitant to massage me when I explained I had a buttock pain, she said she would have to talk to the manager since she would have to touch my buttocks. However she did the massage and on the first day I was wearing a towel. I was lying face down and at one point she removed the towel and just put it to cover my ****. She was saying "don't worry, you are just a kid noh". She never touched my **** but was touching around my anus.
Ok, the first day was fine but all this nightmare started on the second visit. That time I was wearing an underwear (blue briefs) and she was focusing on the tailbone area. She was telling that some nerves have been misaligned (I told her that I lost balance when I was deadlifting). After like 30 mins, while she was massaging the buttocks out of nowhere she put her finger up my anus. She told me that some of the nerves have tilted towards right side and that it needs to be adjusted. Desperate for help, I didn't refuse and she told me to kneel. And her finger was inside my ******* for few minutes and she was also pressing her other fingers towards my balls. That was a bit painful when her finger was pressing my balls. I was so shocked by this and right after I came home, I started googling if HIV could be transmitted by fingering.
My mind was telling me that she was a former prostitute who was HIV+ and wanted to infect me with it. I thought of a scenario where she picked her finger (she was fully clothed and also wearing a cover like kitchen maids. She may have had a needle or something there). I was thinking her finger might have been bleeding while inside my anus. But I was wearing a light blue underwear all the time but I didn't see any blood stain. And also after the massage was over and I went to the receptionist to pay she also came around that area but I didn't see her wearing any plaster or something.
I posted this in the HIV-Prevention forum (https://
www.medhelp.org/posts/HIV-Prevention/Can-I-get-HIV-if-massage-therapist-fingered-me/show/3054493) and everyone said there was never a risk and that I don't need testing. I searched like 50 posts about anal fingering and for all of them the answer was always there has never been a documented case in 40 years, no risk, no need of testing. I accepted it and tried to move on but then some weird symptoms came which freaked me out and got me back in the anxiety roller coaster. I didn't have fever (not even 98F), I dont think I had severe sore throat (I always had large tonsils but dont think it was severe during this time; like painful swallowing, difficult to eat etc.) But the symptom that freaked me out most is some sort of a rash; there are pimple like small bumps in the chest and arms and the skin is very fry and flaky. The weather in here (Sri Lanka) is a bit hot and humid and this is the longest I have stayed at home (like 3 months- due to annual leave and corona lockdown). Maybe that is a reason for the rash, I dunno. I applied vaselene for a like a week, the dryness is somewhat gone but pimple like small spots are still there.
I have been worrying for 8 weeks like this, reading through forums, very difficult to focus on my work and difficulty in sleeping. Can there be any chance where this nightmare scenario be real? I know for that to happen 2 things need to be true.
1. Therapist has to be HIV+ with a motive to infect me.
2. Virus needs to be transmitted via anal fingering.
For (1), most people said this is irrational and crazy. For (2) doctors have said there has never been a documented case and that although it is theoretically possible the probability is ignorable. But my anxiety is so fixated on the fact that (1) is 100%. Based on the story I have told, is there any chance of this nightmare becoming real and me becoming the first person in 40 years to contract HIV by anal fingering (at least the first ever documented case). I never had sex with anyone, not even oral sex, not even kissing LOL.
Now the lockdown is coming to and end soon and now I am starting to fear testing. What should I do? How do I move past this nightmare? Please help.
ps: A bit about my history: in 2018 I had a cut in my neck at barber shop and I told my parents and got the barber tested for HIV since I saw him kind of shaking his finger when putting the blade (like he cut himself). This incident was back in my head and that is why I thought of not telling anything to my parents this time. However, I did call the spa and asked if they would allow the therapist to be tested. But they refused saying they dont allow outsiders to test their therapists.