Hi Sarah -
If you haven't already connected with your local rape crisis center, you might consider doing so.
You can do so through RAINN - https://www.rainn.org/ They have a chat line and a phone hotline.
If you are outside of the US, we have some resources here - https://
www.medhelp.org/general-health/articles/MedHelp-Crisis-Resources/1037
If you need something that isn't listed, please let us know. We'll be happy to help.
Best to you.
Dear Sarah0424, thank you for trusting us enough to tell us what happened to you. I can only imagine how difficult this must have been and continues to be, and I am so sorry you had to go through it. We will try and extend support to you during this very difficult time. I know that you will get through this one day, and I am here to help in any way I can.
I assure you that you have tested conclusively negative.
A. RNA PCR at 10 days was an excellent choice. PCR tests looks for the core viral proteins directly unlike the antibody tests which looks for the immune response to the viral infection.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has rapidly become one of the most widely used techniques in molecular biology and for good reason, it is a rapid and simple means of producing relatively large numbers of copies of RNA molecules from minute quantities of source RNA material even when the source RNA is of relatively poor quality.
Today, the advance ultra sensitive PCR tests looks for as low as 20 copies of RNA in 1 ml of blood, post contraction of HIV - the virus replicates rapidly, if you were actually infected the viral count should been substantial for a PCR to pick it up. If a PCR test with sensitivity of 10-50 copies RNA / ml of blood was undetected, you should be rest assured that you weren't infected at the first place.
B. Also, at 15th day the p24 antigen part of your duo test wasn't detected, that was a good indicator. If you did actually get infected and were going through ARS, which takes place between 7-14 days post infection, p24 antigen in most cases would have been at it's peak during that phase. Absence of this protein indicates that you were safe.
C. Your negative antibody and antigen test at 42 days confirmed that you don't have HIV. Since, average time to sero-convert is 21 days for a healthy, normal individual after the exposure. Detectable amount of antibodies would always be shown in the test result after two weeks following sero-conversion. Having said that, a negative at 6 week conclusively rules out HIV infection.
Hope this helps you.
hiv can`t be diagnosed from symptoms, so if that is what you were thinking then stop googling hiv cold turkey because there is nothing of use there.
Duo is conclusive after 4 weeks so you should stop testing and move on from hiv. Everyone on this forum uses this 4 week guideline for the duo so you won`t get any different "opinions".