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Yeast Infections
On April 14th I had unprotected intercourse with another woman. The days passed and I did not think much of this encounter until a couple of weeks after the event a rash appeared on my penis.
I went to a GP on May 14th and took a blood test. The doctor thought it was herpes. A couple of days after my blood test I developed a sore throat, then a runny nose, then a slight fever with fatigue. I diagnosed this as a cold and did not think much of it. After a week I received my results everything was negative & I was told to see a dermatologist.
I did not get a chance to see a dermatologist but in the mean time I started to notice other symptoms fatigue, anxiety, nausea, minimal weight loss, mild head aches, back pain & random micro pains throughout my body. I am fully aware this may have been caused by guilt but the combination of symptoms worried me. I finally found free time in my schedule to go to a dermatologist & was diagnosed with the naked eye with a yeast infection & was given a tropical cream to deal with the symptoms. After a few days of applying the cream the redness on my foreskin & minimal itching has not gone away and I have now apparently developed thrush on my tongue. This worried me even more because the literature online notes that yeast infections are common for those with HIV & now may have two separate infections & one that will seemingly not go away (another symptom)
I spoke with the woman that I had the encounter with and she told me she was tested in December & on the 5 week mark after we met and everything came back negative.
So the questions I have for you doc are
1) Should I go get retested for HIV? Should I be anxious based on the symptoms & my testing outside of the window period?
2) What can cause me to have two separate yeast infections in my body? I keep good hygiene & have not been on anti-biotics?
3) What are the odds I have contracted HIV considering I got tested at the 31 day mark?
I went to a GP on May 14th and took a blood test. The doctor thought it was herpes. A couple of days after my blood test I developed a sore throat, then a runny nose, then a slight fever with fatigue. I diagnosed this as a cold and did not think much of it. After a week I received my results everything was negative & I was told to see a dermatologist.
I did not get a chance to see a dermatologist but in the mean time I started to notice other symptoms fatigue, anxiety, nausea, minimal weight loss, mild head aches, back pain & random micro pains throughout my body. I am fully aware this may have been caused by guilt but the combination of symptoms worried me. I finally found free time in my schedule to go to a dermatologist & was diagnosed with the naked eye with a yeast infection & was given a tropical cream to deal with the symptoms. After a few days of applying the cream the redness on my foreskin & minimal itching has not gone away and I have now apparently developed thrush on my tongue. This worried me even more because the literature online notes that yeast infections are common for those with HIV & now may have two separate infections & one that will seemingly not go away (another symptom)
I spoke with the woman that I had the encounter with and she told me she was tested in December & on the 5 week mark after we met and everything came back negative.
So the questions I have for you doc are
1) Should I go get retested for HIV? Should I be anxious based on the symptoms & my testing outside of the window period?
2) What can cause me to have two separate yeast infections in my body? I keep good hygiene & have not been on anti-biotics?
3) What are the odds I have contracted HIV considering I got tested at the 31 day mark?
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Welcome to the HIV forum. The bottom line is that there is no serious likelihood you have HIV.
You had a low risk exposure, assuming your nonmarital partner isn't an injection drug user or otherwise at especially high risk of HIV. And she was tested and negative (and people rarely lie about such things). Even if she had HIV, the odds of transmission from a single unprotected exposure are very low, on the order of 1 in 2,000. Further, localized yeast or other fungal infections -- of the penis or anywhere else -- are not a sign of HIV. Such things occur all the time in perfectly healthy people. Your other symptoms (sore throat, runny nose, etc) almost certainly are exactly what they sound like: you caught a cold.
And you had a negative HIV test. I can't tell exactly how long after the new sexual contact you were tested, but Lizzie Lou (on the HIV community forum) calculated it as about a month. That result is highly reassuring; over 90% of newly infected people would have positive antibody tests by then. To your specific questions:
1) None of this suggests sufficiently high risk for you to be tested at all for HIV. On that basis, you don't need another test. However, risk analysis per se is not the only reason for HIV testing. When someone is as fearful as you are, testing is important for psychological reassurance. In other words, I doubt my assessment alone is going to convince you that you don't have HIV. It would be great if I had that power, but since I don't, it's a good idea for you to have another test at 6-8 weeks. You can expect it to remain negative.
2) Yeast infections happen all the time to perfectly healthy people. It has nothing to do with your immune system or anything else. Men catch yeast of the penis all the time from their female partners -- in this case, just as likely your wife as your casual partner last April. All women have yeasts in their vaginas some of the time, usually without symptoms of a yeast infection. It doesn't mean anything.
3) Zero for all practical purposes.
All is well. Have the additional HIV test for reassurance. But don't lose sleep about it in the meantime. However, I suggest you also be tested for common STDs like chlamydia. Now THAT'S a real risk!
Really, mellow out. You're fine.
HHH, MD
You had a low risk exposure, assuming your nonmarital partner isn't an injection drug user or otherwise at especially high risk of HIV. And she was tested and negative (and people rarely lie about such things). Even if she had HIV, the odds of transmission from a single unprotected exposure are very low, on the order of 1 in 2,000. Further, localized yeast or other fungal infections -- of the penis or anywhere else -- are not a sign of HIV. Such things occur all the time in perfectly healthy people. Your other symptoms (sore throat, runny nose, etc) almost certainly are exactly what they sound like: you caught a cold.
And you had a negative HIV test. I can't tell exactly how long after the new sexual contact you were tested, but Lizzie Lou (on the HIV community forum) calculated it as about a month. That result is highly reassuring; over 90% of newly infected people would have positive antibody tests by then. To your specific questions:
1) None of this suggests sufficiently high risk for you to be tested at all for HIV. On that basis, you don't need another test. However, risk analysis per se is not the only reason for HIV testing. When someone is as fearful as you are, testing is important for psychological reassurance. In other words, I doubt my assessment alone is going to convince you that you don't have HIV. It would be great if I had that power, but since I don't, it's a good idea for you to have another test at 6-8 weeks. You can expect it to remain negative.
2) Yeast infections happen all the time to perfectly healthy people. It has nothing to do with your immune system or anything else. Men catch yeast of the penis all the time from their female partners -- in this case, just as likely your wife as your casual partner last April. All women have yeasts in their vaginas some of the time, usually without symptoms of a yeast infection. It doesn't mean anything.
3) Zero for all practical purposes.
All is well. Have the additional HIV test for reassurance. But don't lose sleep about it in the meantime. However, I suggest you also be tested for common STDs like chlamydia. Now THAT'S a real risk!
Really, mellow out. You're fine.
HHH, MD
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
I can't do anything about this. You'll need to contact MedHelp administration. Obviously, you were responsible to select a username and other details to preserve your privacy.
Thanks doc,
The last thing I would like to ask is that I have now realized that medhelp does not allow me to delete posts. I understand why that is as the information in the posts are beneficial to others. Unfortunately my nickname is personally identifiable information as I use it as one of email addresses it is also my aol screen name & I just realized my posts show up on google when I search my handle. Is there anyway for this information to be altered? I would like the information to be changed here & the thread that I started in the communities forum. Sorry to bother you with this matter.
The last thing I would like to ask is that I have now realized that medhelp does not allow me to delete posts. I understand why that is as the information in the posts are beneficial to others. Unfortunately my nickname is personally identifiable information as I use it as one of email addresses it is also my aol screen name & I just realized my posts show up on google when I search my handle. Is there anyway for this information to be altered? I would like the information to be changed here & the thread that I started in the communities forum. Sorry to bother you with this matter.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Your wife probably does not understand the origins of yeast infections in women. They do not come from catching yeasts from their male sex partners. Women are naturally colonized with yeasts, usually in the intestines and often in the genital tract. When a woman gets a "yeast infection", it is usually not because she acquires yeast from her sex partner or anywhere else. The organism that is there all the time. Why it grows to higher levels, or for some reason (not understood) causes more symptoms, is not well understood. But whether or not you have a persisting yeast infection of the penis, it poses no risk to her.
That's all I can say. With apology, the medical advice on this forum is limited to STDs, not to symptoms, diagnosis, or treatment of other kinds of genital infection such as yeast. I cannot say whether or not your yeast infection has cleared up or whether the redness of your penile skin is now normal. These are issues for your dermatologist.
That's all I can say. With apology, the medical advice on this forum is limited to STDs, not to symptoms, diagnosis, or treatment of other kinds of genital infection such as yeast. I cannot say whether or not your yeast infection has cleared up or whether the redness of your penile skin is now normal. These are issues for your dermatologist.
Thanks for the prompt reply doc. If you say that I have nothing to worry about in terms of HIV then I will forget it. I see no point in wasting my time & money getting tested if I have no chance of having contracted the virus. Additionally my GP assured me that I had not contracted chlamydia among other STDs.
But, maybe you can help me with something else. As you already know I was diagnosed with a yeast infection. My dermatologist suggested I return two weeks after applying an econazole nitrate cream if the yeast infection was not gone. I've been applying it for almost a week & I have no clue if its gone, almost gone or if it persits. My wife refuses to have sex with me until it clears up. Thing is I've had this rash for almost two months now and i've been inspecting my foreskin so much that I don't really know what it should look like when it goes back to "normal". I've never inspected it this much so I don't know whats normal or not.
My penis no longer itches & it seems like the red spots that were on the head are gone but it seems like there is still some discoloration around the inner foreskin. What confuses me is the redness in my inner foreskin is different everytime I look at it. In the morning & after a bath it seems less red. During an erection, directly after urination & after washing it with soap it's pretty red. The color of my inner foreskin changes so much throughout the day that I don't know what's normal & what's not. My wife looked at it last night while it was erect and thought it was very red & told me to go back to the dermatologist. I considered it normal due to the blood rushing. Basically what I'm asking is what clues should I be looking for to know whether the yeast infection is gone? What can I do to deal with the discoloration? Is it okay for my inner foreskin to be red during an erection?
Thanks doc
But, maybe you can help me with something else. As you already know I was diagnosed with a yeast infection. My dermatologist suggested I return two weeks after applying an econazole nitrate cream if the yeast infection was not gone. I've been applying it for almost a week & I have no clue if its gone, almost gone or if it persits. My wife refuses to have sex with me until it clears up. Thing is I've had this rash for almost two months now and i've been inspecting my foreskin so much that I don't really know what it should look like when it goes back to "normal". I've never inspected it this much so I don't know whats normal or not.
My penis no longer itches & it seems like the red spots that were on the head are gone but it seems like there is still some discoloration around the inner foreskin. What confuses me is the redness in my inner foreskin is different everytime I look at it. In the morning & after a bath it seems less red. During an erection, directly after urination & after washing it with soap it's pretty red. The color of my inner foreskin changes so much throughout the day that I don't know what's normal & what's not. My wife looked at it last night while it was erect and thought it was very red & told me to go back to the dermatologist. I considered it normal due to the blood rushing. Basically what I'm asking is what clues should I be looking for to know whether the yeast infection is gone? What can I do to deal with the discoloration? Is it okay for my inner foreskin to be red during an erection?
Thanks doc
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Oh, by the way, a little common sense advice: next time, use a condom. Duh.
You are reading content posted in the HIV - Prevention Forum
Condoms are the most effective way to prevent HIV and STDs.
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Frequency of HIV testing depends on your risk.
Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) may help prevent HIV infection.
