Worried for my son

[MikeBrawley]

Dear Drs

My wife and I are concerned for our son so I am writing to you for advice. He is a 16 year old student in London. This happened during a recent holiday trip with some acquaintances. Most were guys but there were a couple of girls. According to him, they did some stupid things like get naked and masturbate. He says that there was no intercourse and while some of the people had oral sex, he chose not to. So he was not engaged in any sexual activity except what might be called mutual masturbation which I read in this Forum is not a risk.

My son is anxious because he remembers there was exchange of fluids during mutual masturbation and he had these fluids on his penis. He is also worried because he does not know enough about some of these people on the holiday trip. He has reasons to believe that some could be HIV+ because they take drugs and are promiscuous. I have asked a couple of physicians about this situation and they said there is nothing to worry about. I have also tried to explain to my son that since he did not have sex, he cannot have any STD. I have not approached any specialists and someone told me about medhelp. I thought if I could get your opinion and show it to my son in written form, it would help to calm him down. What do you think of his risk in this situation? I am also thinking, for peace of mind, to send him for testing. I read on your Forum that 6-8 weeks is good enough to test for HIV – do you feel this is necessary in his case?

Your opinion would be much welcomed and appreciated.

Mike Brawley

[Edward W Hook, MD]

There is no medical need for testing.  If for some reason a test would provide reassurance beyond the facts, a test at 8 weeks would be definitive.  EWH

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to the Forum.  I hope that my reassurance will be helpful to your son.  HIV is spread throat penetrative sexual intercourse or injection of HIV contaminated material.  It is not spread by touching, kissing (including deep kissing), masturbation (even though it is typical for persons engaged in mutual masturbation to get each others' secretions on each other), or condom protected sex –even with persons who have HIV and HIV is a rare disease. Further even if infected genital secretions were to get on a rash, cut, scrape or sore, HIV is not transmitted in this fashion either. The exposures you describe are no risk.

As far as testing is concerned, an HIV antibody blood test performed at 6 weeks would detect over 95% of infections and at 8 weeks virtually all infections would be detectable.   Changes are, on a statistical basis and even if people he was in contact with had used drugs or had multiple sex partners,  that the folks he was with did not have HIV. Even if they did, there is no risk from the activities describe.  

I hope these comments are helpful to you both.  EWH

[MikeBrawley]

Thanks.

[Ur_overreacting]

There's no need to get tested for the event described.

[Ur_overreacting]

There was no risk and your son has nothing to worry about. But sometimes the only way to calm the irrational fears is to get tested for HIV. Once he finds out that it is negative after the window period of time, he'll be able to get on with his life. If the Dr's advice is not enough to calm the fear, testing is the only way. But yes, it sounds like there was absolutely no risk here.

[MikeBrawley]

Dear Dr EWH

Many thanks for the reassurance and the useful detailed information. I will print this out and show it to my son. If I could just ask a final question before I do this, would you ordinarily recommend someone to test for HIV after such an occurrence? The answer is obvious since the above activities are no risk. But if you could just respond to this, it would be very helpful indeed. Many thanks again.

Regards,
Mike Brawley