Student Possible Exposure and so freaked out!! Please help

[studentworried24]

Hi Doctor,

First and foremost I think what you do here is excellent and your are to be admired. Secondly, I have a situation at hand which like may others has taken a huge toll on me and its been very difficult for me to personally deal with. I am student and about 6 weeks ago during my first week on my ER rotation, a young man came into trauma with a finger laceration which needed repair. My attending assisted me and filled up a 10ml syringe with either NS or sterile water-not sure of which one and when he pused it into the wound it splashed back up onto my face and hit me on my cheeks, corner of mouth and eye. He then handed me an ETOH pad and told me not to worry and just wipe it off. He wouldn't let me wash my face immediately but instead insisted I finish with the patient so since I was timid and it was my first week I did as he said. Anyway, I didn't think much of it until about 4 weeks later when I suddenly woke up with a severe sore throat, swollen neck glands and feeling terribly weak and fatigued. I went into work and then I thought about the incident and these new symptoms so I reported it and got tested on the same day. I did orasure rapid which was negative and immune to hep b and negative for hep c which again is about 4 weeks after incident. Well the entire week and thereafter I experienced persisent sore throat which i tested for strept and was negative, headache, the swollen neck glands, extreme fatigue, fell into a depression, decreased appetite and sleep and 2nd week had nasal congestion, some chest pain with deep inspiration especially when lying down, runny nose, PND and more heache. After about 2 weeks I feel better. I still feel one swollen lymp node on my left side of neck. At 5 weeks, 1 week after symptoms began I went for ELISA blood test and was negative. Please help me in letting me know if I am ok or not. Are those ARS symptoms? Should I be concerned? Is 5 week negative elisa after 1 week of symptoms conclusive in this case? I apologize for all the questions as you are a busy man but I desperately need your insight on this.

[uglyduck]

I know you posted the same question in the body... and all I can sayis that Dr. Bob is right you're experience is low risk, but is not negible... I wish you the best of luck...

I dont want to freak you out... but something similar happen to a medicine student... I have a friend who works in the only HIV/AIDS clinic in my country (dominican republic) and not too long ago, actually last monday, a girl who is a med student came in with a similar story, the only difference was that she pinch herself with the needle while treating the patient. however, what she did was that she asked the patient for a blood sample, and then she took the sample to the hospital lab. The lab did not want to analyze the blood because what she did was illegal, so she took the blood to the HIV/AIDS clinic where my friend works... so my friend told her that her risk was low... however, she told my friend, - look take a blood sample from me and test it, and then test this blood... they tested her blood and she was negative, then they tested the blood of the other patient, and the blood was positive. Of course my friend did not tell her that, however, my friend prescribed PEP for her...

I hope, and I'll pray for you tonight... but I think what you should do is try to track this person down and find out...(i think that wouldbe illegal in the U.S.)......... but i do hope you come out on the clear after this one........

GOOD LUCK!!!

[scared_and_confused]

why dont u look in his chart to see if hes hiv positive

[studentworried24]

they completely mislead. the attendant i was with when the incident happened just shrugged it off and told dont worry about it and so i let it go until i started getting sick.

[Teak]

What did they tell you at the hospital or clinic where you were working?

[studentworried24]

sorry its me again... i failed to mention that i had a red tongue the day i got the bad sore throat which was weird... dont know what that means and i lost about 3-5 pounds in the 2 weeks ... i guess to having decreased appetite.. i dont know just dont feel like myself