girlfriend sore throat

[modster]

hi im a 35 year old male in the uk, approx 10 years ago i had a short sexua realtionship (had unprotected sex about 3 times) with a girl who i was lead to belive was a little promiscuous and to be honest i havent worried about it since and have been perfectly well since then(only missed a few days work through sickness in 10 years pretty good i think lol), but i have a new partner with who i have had a sexual realtionship for approx 6 months now and  a few weeks back she came down with what the doctor thought was throat a infection/ tonsilitis with ear ache and prescribed her anti biotics, it seemed to clear up in 3-4 days and she was fine, what concerned me a little was although we kissed had sex a day or so before she became ill i never got any symptoms i was wandering wether this could be due to the fact i could have given her hiv and her symptoms could be down to ars? thanks for your time

[Edward W Hook, MD]

No, this does not change my assessment.  I still feel that your risk is quite low.  As I said before however, if you are  still thinking abou this expsoure, you should go on and get tested anyway and put the event enitrely behind you.  EWH

[modster]

hi doctor thanks for your reply, i have also though it was probably just a sore throat the only reason i worried was because i never got any symptoms of the virus despite our close contact, also i forgot to mention there was also menstrual blood in one of the sexual episodes with the former partner does this increase the risk by much? thanks again this will be my last post to you.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to our Forum.  I would not worry that you got HIV in a relationship a decade ago and have now transferred it to your current partner.  The chance of a heterosexual women, even one with multiple partners having HIV is very, very low. Further, even if she did , your risk of getting HIV through sexual intercourse is only 1 infection, on average, for every 1000 acts of unprotected intercourse. Thus from a statistical basis it is very unlikely that you got HIV and even more unlikely that you have infected your current GF.  It is far more likely that your GF has a plain old, everyday sore throat.

If you are still worrying about having caught HIV in your prior relationship however, I urge you to go on and get tested.  The test will give you reliable information and that is not something for you to worry about going forward. While you are waiting for your test results however, I see no reason at all to worry about the possibility of HIV.  EWH