As I said, all of this is completely consistent with mono or another non-HIV viral infection and there is good evidence that you do not have HIV. EWH
Thanks for the reply. It does help ease my mind a little. However, the enlarged lymph nodes on the back of my head/neck really concern me at 6-7 weeks. I feel relatively fine (minus the fatigue and anxiety) so I don't feel like they could be a different virus. Could it be HIV? Should I assume it's mono or a delay from the allergic reaction I had to the sulfa? Thanks, again.
Welcome to our Forum. I can understand why you might worry and hope that I can help to reassure you that you did not get HIV from the encounters you describe. It sounds as though you probably did have some sort of viral infection about a month after the exposures that you mention. This may have been a viral infection you acquired through your activities of daily living and be could totally unrelated to your earlier sexual encounters. What you describe sounds a bit like what doctors call a "mononucleosis syndrome" which means it could have been due to mono (which is turn is caused by at least two different viruses) or some other viral illness. Then you had the misfortune to get a drug rash (which is actually more common among people who take antibiotics when they have mono). The scenario mimics the symptoms of HIV. BUT, let me reassure you, symptoms beginning a month after exposure is late for the symptoms of early HIV and, most importantly, a negative blood test a week after the onset of symptoms is VERY strong evidence that your illness was not due to HIV. With this as background, let me answer your questions:
1. No, the idea is delayed seroconversion is severely overstated.
2. Nope again, bactrim would not delay antibody production.
3. No, don't be concerned, you Have done the right things. If you find that both of your partners are HIV negative, you will know you could not have gotten HIV form them. Alternatively for complete peace of mind you can re-test at 8 weeks and the negative test result you will get at that time will also provide completely reliable evidence that you did not get HIV from these exposures. I am confident that testing will be negative
I hope my comments are helpful to you. Before I go however, let me urge you to use condoms consistently in the future with new of multiple partners. They work and there are lots of other STDs that you could be exposed to. EWH