Risk and "symptoms"

[IAmVeryWorried]

I am a male and had unprotected sex twice with two different seemingly promiscuous females.  

The first encounter was with a relatively young African American woman with whom I had unprotected vaginal sex with for a number of minutes.  We did it for awhile, but stopped well before I ejaculated. This encounter was probably about 2 - 2 1/2  months ago.

The other encounter was 6 days ago.  We had unprotected vaginal sex for 10+ minutes until I pulled out to ejaculate.  I also gave her oral sex for 30 seconds or so.

Starting yesterday I started have aches that felt like my skin hurt, especially when touched- even my scalp.  I think I had that sensation when I had the flu as a kid (I am 23).  Then once I was trying to sleep, the pain increased and I felt quite cold.  
The "skin" ache still persists today and now some of my muscles are aching quite a bit (especially my legs).  Advil seems to help a bit in general.

These are my only two possible exposures for quite some time except for one regular partner (we got tested together about a year ago).

What does this mean to you?  Should I even really worry to get tested?  Especially as I fully expect to engage sexually only with my regular partner for the indefinite future.

THANKS!!!!

[Edward W Hook, MD]

I think  you have little to worry about.  Although your partners each may have had other partners in the past it is actually quite unlikely that they had HIV, or for that matter any other STD.  My advice would be to go on and get checked for STDs (gonorrhea, chlamydia, NGU, syphilis) as well as HIV (any and all of them can occur without symptoms).  If these tests are negative, you can be sure that you did not get an STD from either partner, and that you did not get HIV from the first partner you described.  This result would not rule out the possibility that you got HIV from the encounter that you had six days ago but that, again on a statistical basis is quite unlikely (odds of getting HIV from a single unprotected encounter with an infected partner (and remember, odds are she was not infected) are less than 1 in 1000.

As for your symptoms, as noted above and on enumerable other posts on this site, symptoms of any sort are very, very unlikely to be due to HIV and far more likely to be due to some other cause such as a community acquired viral infection (i.e. the flu or a cold).  Your soreness, the bump you describe and the painful skin without lesions are not in any way suggestive of HIV.

Finally, please note that the recommendations for getting checked are the same recommendations we give all who have multiple sex partners, not because you are at any special enourmous risk but becasue it is part of keeping yourself healthy.  Hope this is helpful.  EWH

[IAmVeryWorried]

Dr Hook,

I'm not sure if you will see this or not, but I just wanted to say thanks!

-8-D

[traceyz]

Please keep in mind that symptoms are NEVER a good idea when it comes to diagnosing yourself. I think you should just go get tested. NOT because I think you are infected but because it would put your mind at rest and you can get on with your life and try to learn from the mistakes that we have ALL made.

You said the 1st girl was 2 and a half months ago and the other girl was 6 days. Go to a place like planned parenthood that does the oral rapid test. It only takes 20 minutes and you will be so relieved!! Now as for the girl that was 6 days ago i would go test again in another 6 wks just to put my mind at ease about her. But I am SURE you fine! NEVER use symptoms as a way of diagnosing.

Good luck

[IAmVeryWorried]

I also have a slight sore throat (not as bad once the day went on and I rid of some of the mucus).

I don't get sick very often at all and when I do it is usually simply a cold.  It's the soreness that worries me, really.  I also had a random red bump looking thing on the top of my penis that I noticed a day or two after the last encounter.  I actually scraped if off pretty easily with my nails and it has already healed over and is not visible.