combo test

[oren]

i will try to be brief and appologise for my bad english .
10 weeks ago i gave oral sex to a girl i didnt know before . 1 week later i did some cocaine with a friend of mine who just got back from sierra leone (west africa) on my birthday .
now : 2 days later he told me he thinks he is hiv+ because he was having sex (protected) with some girls in sierra leone and he had uprotected sex with a girl in south africa . scince i knew that girl in s.a i know she is prbably hiv - so i wasnt so worried about him about a week later i developed a round white sore on my lower lip and had some small yellowish spots in my throught and aphtos under my tongue i went to the doctor and he gave me nistatin and told me i am fine a couple of days later i got a  sore throught and stiff neck for about 2 weeks and had night sweats and my glend had a bit of puss on them . so i started to worrie science my friend had a very dry cough and lost a lot of weight and i shared that coke straw with him so 5 weeks past the coke appisode and 6 weeks past oral sex i had a test in hospital (hiv 1/2 p24 combo ag/ab) which came back negative so i was a bit relieved and read on the net that i have near 0 chances of infection . after the test i had sex with my g.f and she got flu like symptoms sore throught and itchy skin that came out from nowhere so she had blood tests(not hiv) and all ok i had blood tests 1 week before which showed low lymph count
also my lymph nodes under my arm started to grow a bit . i am so worried about her and that i may have infected her i will be tested again but i would like to know if it is possible to get infected through sharing coaine straw or giving oral sex to a girl ?(she told me she is ok and here in my country there are 5000 cases of hiv out of 7 milion people ) can i test positive after that new generation combo test at 5/6 weeks? i dont know what to think and very scares please let me know my odds.

[oren]

i also wanted to add that i read in "the body " that there have been documented cases of people getting hiv from oral sex and it is not a near zero chance of exposure

[oren]

thank you so much for your comment .
the thing is that i got worried because my girlfriend got symptoms about two weeks after we had sex and i didnt mention constipation and throwing up .
i guess the only way to know is to gwet tested i hope you are right . again thank you i feel a bit better

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

All of your long story comes down to just one thing:  the negative combo test 6 weeks after exposure means you did not catch HIV during the exposure you describe.  The symptoms are meaningless; the test result proves that HIV is not the cause.

To touch on other issues: Nobody ever got HIV by sharing cocaine-snorting equipment.  You cannot catch HIV by performing oral sex on a woman.  Sympoms never are a useful indicator of HIV infection in a person at slow risk.  People's self assessment of their own lymph nodes is very unreliable; I doubt the lymph nodes are enlarged at all.

Bottom line:  Relax.  The odds you have HIV are to low to measure.  See your own provider for evaluation if your symptoms persist; and if it will help you sleep better, have another HIV test in a few weeks.

HHH, MD