ARS and testing Q's

[Probablyhypercondriact]

Hi again, I’ve posted before, and am sorry to do so again, but I’ve been really worried about something. My exposure was vaginal (protected) unprotected oral and fingering/kissing with IV drug user and rumored HIV positive woman (I’ve now been told she is positive, but I don’t know if its 100% reliable). When I went to test at about 100 days, I had just begun to have a flu like illness 4-6 days before my test. If this was ARS would that have made my test result inaccurate? As my seroconversion illness had just begun, and therefore the antibodies hadn’t become prevalent enough to be detected?

My questions are:

1.) Do ARS and seroconversion occur at the same time? So if you test at 12 weeks and you have ARS at 14 you won’t have tested positive at 12 for example.

2.) Are aches and pains, 2 lymph nodes swollen in neck, and 2 in groin for weeks (doctor diagnosed them as being enlarged, but said they where “clinically insignifigant” as they weren’t accompanied by other symptoms and weren’t “fused together with other nodes”) symptoms of early HIV infection, after ARS has passed. And are “clinically insignifigant” nodes inconsistent with HIV enlarged nodes?

3.) One of my roommates has been struck down by a flu like illness, complaining of fluctuating temperature (hot for a while then really cold, then hot) aches and pains and headache. She shares my bathroom, could she have been infected somehow? Using my razors for example as girls do sometimes.

4.) Do HIV blood tests often get botched up and show wrong results because of errors when testing? My blood was taken at my GP and sent off, I got the result 2 days later of this matters.

5.) I have some little white spots on my fingers,is this a possible symtpom?

6.) Is another test necessary? Since I might have had ARS during my first test?

Sorry, Ill abide by the rules and not post another question for 6 months.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

From the information you have provided, you HAVE NOT acquired HIV from the exposure you describe.  It was a single encounter (thus the probability of getting infected are very low), you were protoected for the genital exposure (lowering your risk still further, and the other exposure is very. very low risk.  All of these make it very unlikely that you acquired HIV from this exposure.  When you add to all of this the fact that you had a negative blood test at 100 days, you can be virtually sure that you did not get HIV from that exposure.  With regard to your specific questions.

1.  ARS preceeds seroconversion, typically occurring 1-3 weeks following exposure.
2.. There are a tremendous number of things that can cause the aches and pains you describe, as well as swollen lymph nodes.  The ARS is just one, and among the entire spectrum of possibilities, a rare one.  To focus on the symptoms is a mistake and invites unnecessary worry.
3. NO
4. Lab errors occur but hardly ever.  Labs go to enourmous lenghts to avoid such mistakes.  For you to get your test results back in two days is not unusual, depending on when the test is run in the laboratory.
5.  NO
6.  As I said above, with a negative test at 100 days, you have nothing to worry about. Please try to get this behind you.

I hope this is helpful.  EWH

[jenkinjimmy]

Dude, just relax. You don't have the HIV.