I know, I know but...

[scar21]

Hey all.

You might recognize my name from a past post.  Thanks to you all who answered.  I just wanted some reassurance on some things if anyone could help.  I know that symptoms don't mean anything but...I would assume that they must mean something possibly.  I know my risk was pretty low.  Mutual unprotected oral sex with a transexual sex worker (I sucked and was sucked).  No ejaculation.  5 weeks ago today.  I am trying to make it to the 6 week mark to test and I keep going back and forth between, I HAVE IT and I CANT HAVE IT.  It is almost unbearable.  This is what I have been feeling.

1. Just yesterday I started having a fever About 99.9 - 101
2. Yesterday I got a sore throat
3. Seems my neck is a little swollen
4. I am not sure about other swollen areas of nodes.  but I have a pain high up on my left quad that wont go away.
5. This morning I woke up with a dry cough
6. I had a rash on my neck for about 3 days. It is almost gone today.
7. I always feel warm and flushed in the face.
8. Persistant headaches.

This is site has been so helpful.  I am driving myself nuts though.  I have read all the stats, and people have been so helpful with their own experiences and yet I still feel like this.  It is hard to overcome.  Well, one more week until I can take the 6 week test.  

Anyway, thanks in advance to anyone who can share some insight.  I really appreciate it.

[Xhost]

Scar,

Welcome to the hell that is "Guess Today's Symptom?!?" It is, I am sure, a gameshow that is very popular in hell. I've been there: I had every symptom in the book. Let's see: terribly sore throat, fever, what I thought were enlarged lymph nodes, tingling in my hands and feet, random and odd aches and shooting pains. You name it, I had it.

I eventually went to see a doctor. He took my temperature first, and said it was 99. I said: "Aha, fever!". And he said: not quite. People's temperatures vary over the course of a day, the course of a week and even the course of a year. Sometimes you run hot, sometimes you run cold. I then pointed out to the good doctor my enlarged lymph nodes. First, he looked at the place I was pointing and informed me that I didn't have any lymph nodes there. I looked frightened for a second, and then he hastily said that no human being has lymph nodes there. Then he checked my real lymph nodes and said they were fine - and told me to stop trying to feel them myself. Next, he looked down my throat and it was red - but he said he had seen 10 other people that day with the same thing. I found out I was becoming allergic to something or other. The rest of the stuff I told him he brushed off as the ravings of a clearly anxiety riddled man.

Now, even after that doctor visit, I just knew something was wrong. The aches, the pains, the whatever! Funny thing is, once I stopped worrying so much about HIV, they all just sort of went away. No kidding: in the morning I was a mess and in the evening I was fine. Seems ridiculous, but it is true.

I guess the point of this is that being on the constant lookout for some new symptom or other, being hypersensitive to what's going on in your body, is pretty much a guarantee that you'll find something "wrong". And as mild as it is, well, it'll become a big deal soon enough.

Like me, you may have made the mistake of reading about symptoms of primary HIV infection on the Web. And when I say it is a mistake, I mean it. A big one. So I eventually stopped doing it. In the end, it was a waste of time anyway, because symptoms mean nothing - they are a very, very poor indicator of HIV infection. Besides, have you seen the list of associated symptoms? It's freaking huge! It's absurd: everything from hair loss to your house burning down is attributed to HIV. I don't trust the list, for many reasons, and I wish I'd never seen it.

In any event, hope you are feeling better now. Sounds like you are going to take the test, which is good. Not because you might be infected, but because your negative result will help put all this behind you.

Good luck, and take care of yourself.

[scar21]

Who,

Thank so much for your answer.  It is so frustrating.  Everyday I seem to see new symptoms.  I am sure I am just looking harder.  And I am sure the stress is getting to me.  I try to rationalize everything but it gets difficult.  But thanks.  I agree with you on every point.  I just hope next week when I take the 6 week test that I can be satisfied with a neg result and not worry about whether it was long enough.  

Thanks again.

Scar

[who_dis]

You had a very low risk exposure.  5 weeks is too late for ARS symptoms, anyway.  PLUS, Dr. HHH has been very clear that symptoms are meaningless.

You sound like you are coming down with a garden variety viral illness, of which there are thousands present in the world today.  Your anxiety is linking the two together in your mind.

If you must test, do so at the 6 week mark.  But I bet you will then start having anxiety over whether you waited long enough.  It seems very hard to get HIV anxiety out of peoples heads.  There is one guy on here who has literally tested every week for about 4 months.  He STILL doesn't trust the results.

As Dr. HHH likes to say, your chances of being injured or dying in a car accident in the next two weeks is VASTLY greater than your chance of contracting HIV through the exposure you described.  Yet no one seems to constantly obsess about driving or riding in cars.  It has to be that sex/shame/guilt trip going on, that leads people to believe they will be "punished" in some way for perceived transgressions.