HIV anxiety

[youngandscared12345]

Hi, im one of them gay lads thats really paranoid, i gave unprotected oral sex, and i do have cuts in my mouth all the time (from chewing my gums through anxiety) i know the chances of contracting are low-no risk but a few days later i developed all the symptoms, sore throat, swollen glands, nausea, headaches, diahorrea, achey body etc.

people in the HIV prevention forum say its anxiety etc, but my symptoms lasted for about a month, then i was ok;ish for a week, and now im ILL again!

the doctor prescribed me with fluoxetine hydrochloride, i dont know whats going on :(

recently ive been having wierd chest pains, with numbness and tingling in my left arm

[anxiety860]

FYI prozac taks 6-8 weeks to even begin to start working. in the mean time ask your doctor to give you a short dosage of fast acting pills until the prozac kicks in.

[anxiety860]

Oh buddy, I have gone through what you went through.  when I did life sucked! Luckily for me I was able to overcome my anxiety/hiv fear.  I told myself... I seriously have never met anybody with HIV. less thatn 1% of people in America have it... and as nursegirl said dont shoot drugs or have unprotected sex and you'll be fine! I have unprotected sex with one person only now and that is my long time girlfriend.... But before I met her I had unprotected sex with idk im guessing 6 girls.... my head was telling me YOU HAVE HIV. I KNEW I HAD IT. I felt VERY LOW.... anyways i finally grew a pair, got tested and it was negative. I thought no way.... I want another test, which lead to another one. negative, negative, negative! I had a serious risk by having unprotected sex, you had a no risk with oral sex...... Never use needles, settle down with one person if that is your thing and you'll never have to worry about it... watch the documentary on magic johnson.  The Lakers doctor treated him without wearing gloves when he was bleeding to prove a point to the other players. (I would never advise doing this) but it shows just how hard it is to get that disease.

[youngandscared12345]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I've read your journal on HIV and oral sex, and its very reassuring, but as you probably know, you soon forget the reassuring bits and your mind starts spinning again, im now at a point where im feeling suicidal, this has once again ruined my life. a side from constantly being sad, i have constant physical symptoms that are keeping the HIV problem in my mind, i feel sick everyday, headaches, diahorrea, sore throat, rashes, the doctors prescribed me fluoxetine hydrochloride but clearly it isnt working, surely anxiety can cause me to be this achey etc? I just dont know where to go with this anymore, i've really really had enough.

[nursegirl6572]

Unfortunately, HIV anxiety is all too common.  I'm sure you can see that based on the number of threads on the HIV forum about VERY low or NO risk situations that are causing a lot of stress for the poster.

A LOT of HIV anxiety stems from the fear-based education approaches about HIV that have been around for decades.  There is SO much misinformation out there about HIV and the vast majority of people have VERY inflated views about what constitutes a REAL risk for HIV, again, largely based on the fear based education.  The more experts learned about HIV and studied it, the better they understood just how difficult it is to transmit, but people still don't believe that.

You didn't have a risk.  It boils down to an easy simple fact to remember...unless you have unprotected anal sex, or share IV drugs, you'll never be at risk for HIV.  It's really as simple as that.

Obviously you're struggling to accept the above, therefore it's probably a good idea to seek some professional help for the anxiety.

Good luck to you.

[ROSYouralright]

Anxiety can produce a multitude of symptoms! The best advice I can give you is ALWAYS practice safe sex so you won't be panicking afterwards:)