Dear Dr.,
I am a family man living in Canada. I just made a stupid mistake in my life. A couple of weeks ago, I had a business trip to Korea and had a sex with a female sex worker on Oct 31. I used a condom during the whole process, including one minute oral sex and two minutes vaginal intercourse (didn't check if the condom is broken or not; I remember the condom still covered the head of my penis when I pulled out) I then travelled to India. One week later (Nov 7) I got a cold with productive cough and sore throat. I also developed a fever (100~102). I went to see a local doctor. He gave me a shot for reducing the fever, and asked me to take Amoxicillin pills for a week. The fever was gone in three days, and the cough was gone in about ten days. Yesterday when I was surfing internet, I happened to read an article about HIV ARS. It seems my symptoms are very similar to that, although I didn't observe joint pain, diarrhea, enlarged lymph nodes and rash. I am scared to death. I don't know if I have been infected with HIV. I then found this great forum. After reading many posted questions, I understand that symptoms may not be used for HIV diagnosis. But I am still nervous. Is my symptoms a typical ARS? I am planning to take 8 week HIV test. However, since I have taken some medicine when I had fever and cold. I wonder if this will make it longer for the HIV antibody to appear. Is the 8 week test result still accurate in my case? Thank you very much for your reply. I really appreciate your help.
My life has been messed up. I regret my mistake deeply...