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Tick borne illness or HIV
I went to the hospital mid August with a fever of 104. I had no rash indicative of a tick and no other symptoms, but the fever. My CBC WBC: 5.1 Neutrophils: 85% Lymphocytes 7%. I was admitted and everything negative in blood cultures. They treated me with general antibiotics and antibiotics for tick. Infectious disease doctor said it was most likely a tick illness (even though no rash) . My fever broke after 3 days (1 day upon starting doxycycline for tick) and within two days of ER WBC was 4.5 Neutrophils 70% Lymphocytes 20%. Blood work has ALL been normal since was pulled twice in September. I have not had sex in over a year so I'm not worried about ARS. I guess my question is if I were HIV positive and lymphocytes happened to be pulled down by HIV would they increase like that within two days? I didn't have high risk behaviors, don't use drugs.. was just going through a divorce a year ago and who knows if he cheated on me. The Infectious Disease doctor said he was certain this was caused by a tick an didn't see a need to further investigate. Upon coming home from the hospital and seeing how low lymphocytes were I started "googling" wrong thing to do, but they were above 20% in three blood draws between mid august and now. Doctors said I'm healthy and don't need to see me until January.
And I was tested for HEP A, B, C, and D at first because liver enzymes were extremely ALL negative.
2 Comments
The easiest way to determine your HIV status is simply to take a test. There really isn't any value in trying to attribute your lymphocyte count to HIV. You had a pretty low risk for HIV, but if it's weighing on your mind, just get a test any time now for a conclusive result and put the question behind you.
I guess I never tested positive for tick (doctor didn't test me at all), but wondering about the jump in lymphocytes in 2 days pretty much tripled and stayed there. I didn't think of a HIV related fever 1 year after a minimal possible exposure. Google had my mind wondering.
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