I posted this on the docotor's forum recently and got reassurance that I was never at risk at all.
Recently, I went on a business trip and very stupidly finished an evening with a trip to an exotic massage parlor. Earlier in the day, I had used an electric hair clipper to shave my legs, chest and area around my genitlas. As a result, I had quite a few scrapes and cuts on my body, mostly on my legs.
Anyway, at the massage parlor, all I received was a massage and a hand job, at one point the woman did cough on her hand (seemingly dry cough) and continued to massage me. At the end, she cleaned me off with a hot wet towel.
Now, I am completely freaking out that I may have contracted HIV through a scrape on my body. I don't know if she had any cuts or scrapes on her hands. Also, I don't really know if the hot wet towel she used to clean me off with was clean or not. If she did have a cut or soar am I at risk?
Following this, I went to my hotel room and took a shower and when I soaped up my legs they did sting quite a bit, indicating that the scrapes from earlier where still not healed.
I did take an oraquick 19 days, Home Acess at 26 days and Oraquick again at 32 days. All tests came back negative.
So far I've experienced nausea, loose stools and a strange feeling of tension in my legs. In addition, I've had a couple of days of really bad itching. Sometimes I can't notice anything on the itchy spots, while other times i notice small little bumps. The itch has occured mostly on my back, chest, face and scalp. I don't know if stress and anxiety can lead to this sort of itching.
In the back of my mind I keep thinking that the exotic masseuse may have had a cut or soar on her hand which may have mixed with my cuts, but I just don't know. I've also noticed a couple of small pin sized red dots that appear and then vanish after a day or so on various parts of my body. To top it off I got a sore throat today. Could I be running my self down through constant and extreme stress, worry and fear?
All I know is that I never had any of these symptoms prior to this. I'm really concerned.
Dr. HHH told me there is absolutely no risk from what I described and that I didn't need testing at all. My question is, why from a molecular level is there no risk from what I described. I would very much like to know the scientific reasoning behind that.