What happens after ARS?

[Insina]

I know about ARS and seroconversion. But what I am actually interested in is what happens after this period.

Will I live a normal life without any symptoms caused by the virus? Or can there be symptoms, e.g. these opportunistic infections, that might appear as soon as after the above mentioned three months? I know about the often quoted 7 to 10 years until "outbreak", but what's going on before?

If I had symptoms after 15 weeks, they normally wouldn't get related to ARS anymore, right? But could they get related to the infection itself? Or is it therefore too early?

So is it worth feeling scared about any abnormality that appears after 3 months (or maybe even 6 weeks)?

[worriedman402]

Is ARS really 2-4 weeks or up to 6 weeks? They said at the GUM clinic it's 4-6 weeks I think, because I mentioned some symptom I had at around 2-3 weeks and she said it was too early for ARS and was nothing to do with hiv anyway.

[Insina]

Forgot to say: Thanks a lot for your support!!

I guess we all should stop thinking about ourselves for a second and thank you because you are really doing a great job here. I really appreciate this! And it helps me a lot.

[Insina]

You are absolutely right, Teak. And although I am a little coward, I know that I will have to do this test asap.

But as long as my anxiety is not completely ruining my life yet, I don't want to risk my job for a few weeks sooner or later to be tested. Of course, health comes first, but right now I am working night and day due to a very important project. And I don't want to give this damn fear the power to control whole of my life.

As soon as I can leave the country, I will.

[Teak]

You said in a previous post that you had unprotected anal sex and you haven't had your 3 month test conclusive test. You can't go buy symptoms, but if you did actually get infected you wouldn't have symptoms of anything out of the normal possibly for several years. You will need to get that 3 month conclusive test result. ARS symptoms come on at 2-4 weeks post exposure and last from 1-2 weeks. The symptoms you have after that have nothing to do with HIV. My only suggestion to you is to get that conclusive test done. Hope to hear that you received a negative result when you get done.

[nonbeliever]

for most people after ars there is nothing, the virus silently replicates and damages the immune system slowly, meantime the immune system is fighting back. once in a blue moon someone will have proceed to aids very quickly, at 15 weeks you should hve an hiv test and know your results.