Nervous

[MaiCho]

Hi,

I m a 23 years old, rather healthy female, working in the services industry and have a stable boyfriend.
But 4 months ago I was at a party and had unprotected sex with a male when I was half drunk (i was not sure if he used any protections)

in early Jan., I am diagnosed with bladder infection, so i went to a walk in and the doc prescribed me some sulfa antibiotis.
last week I developed some rashes over my arms, and feet. so I went to the doc again and he said I'm allergic to the sulfa antibiotics. day after I got a high fever and it sat at 40C for whole day, plus i had swollen glands on both sides of my neck. I went into the doc and he took samples of my saliva and blood. He thinks I am diagnosed with mono., and the rashes are from the med-allergy.

however, my fever is gone after a night, and my blands are seemed beter now.
I look into the symptom for mono, and I don have sore throat, just fatigue and lost appetite.

On the other hand, I was googling sulfa-allergy and it says people with low immune system such as the ppl with HIV are very vulnerable to the sulfa-allergy. and the symptoms are rather similiar to mine.. and I am pretty healthy most of the time.

my test result will not return until another week. and I'm really worried right now. I wonder if you can give some clues on whats going on.

Thanks for your great help

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

The chance of a woman catching HIV from a single heterosexual exposure is much less than 1 in 500.  If the partner had HIV, the chance could be that high (1 in 1,000 is the usual estimate), but that is extremely unlikely.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

You are asking some reasonable questions.  To be honest, I cannot say with absolute certainty you don't have an acute HIV infection (called the acute retroviral syndrome, or ARS).  Infectious mononucleosis predisposes to drug allergy; I have not heard that ARS does so, but ARS and mono are similar in many ways, so perhaps what you read is correct.

However, all things considered, the arguments against ARS are strong.  HIV remains rare in most heterosexual populations in the US and other industrialized countries, so it is unlikely your partner had HIV.  Your symptoms came on much too late to have acquired ARS (or mono, for that matter) during your sexual adventure 3-4 months earlier; ARS symptoms usually start in 10-20 days, probably never later than 4-5 weeks.  (This is the same for mono, by the way.  If you have mono, you didn't catch it 4 months ago.  More likely from your regular partner.)

So I suggest you just sit tight and wait for the HIV blood test result, which almost certainly will be negative.  Perhaps a blood test for mono was done; that will probably be positive (but not necessarily, since there are other mono-like illnesses that give negative blood tests).

Finally, if not yet done, you might ask your provider about testing for other STDs.  The symptoms of gonorrhea and chlamydia can be very similar to those of UTI.  Sulfa drugs would probably (but not necessarily) cure chlamydia, but probably not gonorrhea.

In summary, don't lose a lot of sleep waiting for the test results.  Come back and let us know what they show.  Finally, if you're going to put yourself in positions when unexpected sex might happen, please get in the condom habit!  And watch that alcohol.

Best wishes--  HHH, MD

[casper33]

It's unlikely that you would get hiv from a single exposure, although it does happen (i think it is something like a (1 in 500 chance).  You have to think about the possibility that your nerves are adding to some your symptoms.