Hello,
I have been very worried and have had problems due to reading too much about dieseases over the internet. I have made a promise to myself to only ask doctors questions regarding my health from now on and to not start reading random sites that might just give me more to worry about. I believe I have a fairly strong obsessive personality and that has caused me to go this far...but I am almost through, just need a few more straight forward answers.
Anyways, I am aware that there is htlv I/II/III and hiv 1/2. I got tested for hiv1 and 2 by a standard antibody test and it came back negative (this is past 3 months after my last sexual encounter, way past that mark). I then asked my doctor to test me for htlv I/II/III on top of that test. He had to call into the labratory that does the testing (which here in Canada is at a central site run by government -public health). They told him that I can do htlv II/III but htlv I was already included in the hiv test that I previously did.
I am not to sure about the likliness of this being true i.e. that htlv 1 is included in the hiv test. The reasons I think this cannot be the case are the following:
1) If it were true, wouldn't that be a liable lawsuit that they are testing for something without my permission? i.e. if they came back and told me I am htlv positive, I would be surprised that I was even tested for this.
2) the test came back saying neg for hiv1 & 2 but didn't say anything about htlv 1
3) lets say the test came back positive, the lab technicians would have to than perform further tests to find out if they are anitbody positive due to hiv1 or hiv2 or htlv 1 ie.perform filtering....and to my knowledge, the only test that they perform after an elisa positive is the western blot (which could come out indertiminate if positive due to hiv2)?
4) if they did this test as part of research than they wouldn't be liable to tell my doctor either.
But than again, it is a fairly strong argument that they ordered htlv II and htlv III for me but not htlv I-which leads me to believe that I might actually have been tested.
Thank you very much doctor.