Muscle Weakness-no Joint Pain

[danmc1]

Hello Doctor-I am a 54 yo male and I am worried. appx 11 weeks ago I had a few drinks and used a used safety razor in the shower at a massage parlor (all women giving massages). I cut my neck shaving. At 8 days my biceps and triceps began aging-my thighs slightly too.  My sinuses became inflamed and cleared up in abt three weeks. My muscles have improved but now at 10 weeks still are a bit weak. . I have had a temperature slighly below normal (98.0) for a while now. I had an HIV rapit test @ 6.5 and again at 9 weeks. Both were negative. I had a Hep ABC screen done with liver enzymes @ 4 weeks by my GP negative and normal. Here are my questions:
1. should I get tested now for HEP antibodies or wait for 12 weeks? The PCR test is expensive.
2. Based on the facts above-what are my chances of having HIV, Hep B or C?
3. If not Hep, what other illness could be causing this muscle weakness please?

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the forum.  However, you have asked the same questions repeatedly on the HIV and hepatitis C community forums and the STD international forum, with the same advice each time.  You apparently are having difficulty believing or understanding the responses you received.

Massage parlor or not, the odds the razor was contaminated with a blood-borne virus is very low; and even if it was, the chance of transmission from a single use of such a razor is very low.  The risk for HIV is zero for all practical purposes and you definitely don't need HIV testing.  This forum doesn't deal with issues other than HIV, but my belief is the chance of either hepatitis B or C is extremely low -- maybe not quite zero as for HIV, but low enough that I would not have recommended testing for them.

As for your symptoms, they are very nonspecific and do not point to any of these infections, especially in the absence of fever.  I have to wonder whether they result primarily from your evident anxiety about this event.  If they continue or otherwise concern you, you'll have to continue to follow up with your GP to sort it out.  But for sure you have no worries about HIV and probably not about hepatitis.

Regards and happy new year--  HHH, MD

[danmc1]

Thank you for your incredibly prompt (and welcome) reply. The only enduring, real symptom is this muscle weakness-I have never felt anything like it and it scares me. It simply hangs on-though it no longer throbs like it did originally. The Hep forum does not take paid questions now and your intelligent, caring advice was worth it to me. I will go back to my internist and see what this might be. I have had an occasional night sweat (~4 over the past 10 weeks) but attribute that to anxiety and maybe too many blankets.
Thanks Again and Happy New Year.