worried for hiv

[greedy74]

hello doctors, i am writing here to share my worries and ease my mind so if you need any additional information from me in order to answer clearly please ask me. As it seems i have an HIV fear that i am unable to control, and several times i have been worried that i contracted hiv although i was engaged in low or no risk activities. My last exposure was like this. I visited a prostitute in Cyprus with which i had oral and vaginal sex. Before i proceed to sex with her i asked her to visit the bathroom and she told me okay. In her toilet i saw vomit and i suspected she might be sick. Anyway i had protected oral and vaginal with her but my condom seem to have much air at the tip and when i was inside her she told me to pull out before i cum, something that she did not asked my friend to do , that he had sex with her before me. I though that she might have felt something in order to ask me to pull out. So i pulled out and i asked her to perform oral at me in irder to finish. When i finished she told me that the ejaculation in the condom is not much and that i might have ejaculated inside her. The condom look torned and a real mess, so i did not know if it was broken or not. The event did not bothered me until some weeks later in which i found myself sick with with fever(just for the night) and for the next couple of days sneezing and runny nose, with an unexplained blotch on my left hand. And since the time i had sex with her i have VERY FREQUENT cold sore outbreaks which i think is oral herpes. I read some articles over the net and i found out that frequent oral herpes outbreaks might be due to an immunodeficiency problem such as hiv. I can't really explain what is the cause for the frequent outbreaks and i also can't tell if i am at risk or not. Please help me ease my mind

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Since you are at mimimal if any risk of HIV, that cannot explain your symptoms, and we don't speculate on causes of symptoms other than HIV. But your symptoms do not suggest HIV anyway.  HIV doesn't cause runny nose, sneezing, or nasal congestion.  You caught a cold.

Your recurrent oral herpes also does not suggest you have HIV.

I repeat my main advice:  have an HIV test.  Until you do that, it is a waste of my time and yours to speculate about all this.  In the meantime, I suggest you stop searching the web about this.  Like many anxious people, it seems you are being drawn to information that inflames your fears and not seeing the reassuring information.

Let me know your HIV test result, but until then I will delete any other comments.

[greedy74]

well the first time i realized it was frequent is when i developed a cold sore on my lips and when i was fine 2 weeks later i developed again, but it usually happens once in a month, maybe once in 2 months. Even if it is herpes is it at any chance associated with the exposure. And i another i wanted to ask, you did not comment about my other symptoms at all

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the forum.  However, I don't think I can help.

You understand (intellectually if not emotionally) that your potential exposures were "low or no risk".  From your description of the exposure, I agree; there is no chance you caught HIV, even if your partner was infected -- and probably she was not.

You don't say what you mean by "cold sore" symptoms, and you don't say how frequent they are happening.  Oral herpes never recurs more often than once every 1-2 months; it your symptoms are more often, then herpes is not the cause.  If this problem continues, you should see a doctor about it.

Finally, I would advise you to have an HIV test.  Not because I believe you were at real risk (I do not) and not because I believe you have HIV (I do not).  But maybe a negative test would help convince you that you don't have it.  For most anxious persons, negative testing provides more reassurance than the opinion of an expert.

If you have an HIV test and would like to return with a comment to tell me the result, I will be happy to comment further.  Until then, it is pointless to speculate and I won't have any other comments or advice.

Regards--  HHH, MD