Hello
The chances of you contracting HIV from a single vaginal exposure are something like 1 in 1000 or 1 in 1200 episodes - so unlikely.
In your favour is the fact that the condom was on most of the time and exposure was brief. Although 1 in 200 sounds a lot ( and it is) it does mean that the chances of meeting an HIV positive sex worker are unlikely.
Have I seen people contract HIV in this circumstance? - yes, but infrequently.
You should have a full range of STD tests including ideal an HIV DUO test at 28 days along with a syphilis and hepatitis B blood test.
I think overall your chances of contracting HIV are low.
best wishes, Sean
What home testing option do you recommend? As I am living in china and it very hard to find English speaking doctors. Just how many patients have you seen just curious when you say infrequent.
I don't recommend home testing. If you are to test then you should - in my opinion at least - see a doctor or a nurse to do that for you. In any case I'm not aware of any "home tests" that will give you reliability at 13 or so days. There is a dried blood spot test which will do a PCR for you and which is designed for use in developing nations - the advantage being that only a number of blood spots are required for the test. It relies on the principle that in early HIV disease the viral load - the amount of virus detectable in the blood rises exponentially from a standing start - so for exampe rising from zero before infection to in some cases over 10 million copies per ml of blood at around 10 or so days post exposure.
With reference to infrequently - I'm afraid I don't have numbers for you. we do see many new HIV positive people often very shortly after infection in my clinic. The vast majority of these exposures in metropolitan London are in the men who have sex with men population. We see perhaps a few - maybe five or so - per year who have heterosexual exposures leading to HIV infection. best wishes, Sean
I think I will fly to hong kong in a few weekends and have it done at the confidential anonymous clinic along with will all other STDs. I think it is reassuring that only 5 heterosexual men tested positive. I can at least sleep well knowing there is only a very minimal chance. After all condoms break only 1 percent of the time and I've only had that happen once in my entire life. From now on I will not sleep with any high risk partners like CSW.
I know you don't recomend home testing that why I plan to fly to hong kong when I get the chance where I can have some medical confidentiality to get a full STD check with HIV DUO:) . However I now have a " HIV 1/2/0 Triline Rapid Test" made by a company called ACON. The directions are all in chinese so I can't really read them, and do not know much about the test. It has 3 lines, and I assume I prick my finger put 3 drops of blood on the circle, then they have water to put on cirlce to make blood flow bettter if needed. Wait 20 minutes then if there are no lines on the T1 or T2 and just only on the C line I'm negative.
Anyways Is this an antibody test? I assume I should wait till past 28 days in this case? It has been 17 days since my exposure now.