testing at 3 weeks

[gottathink]

I'm just trying to understand all this ..........i would have to bet that if u test at three weeks more than likely if u have hiv u will test positive..........if a test is highly sensitive........and is accurate 99 % of the time then why worry about it anymore..........wouldn't u say that its true that ...........doctors give a more than moderate grace period for assurance ...........and to cover their butt just in case of law suiits and etc................i asked three different hiv test facilites if they have ever seen someone test negative on an elisa test or other and then come back in weeks later and test positive ...........all three said that they have never seen ............but neither ruled out that it couldn't happen......................plus the bottom line is that is not a  terminal illness anymore............its a chronic illness with almost the life expectancy of a normal adult................44yrs is the life expectancy after catching the disease...............i think we should be encouraging more testing because people are not dying at a high rate.......................lets educated those who have not been tested and for god's sake if u've been tested then ........don't play russian roulette again with ur vagina or penis.............

[Teak]

The only conclusive negative result is 3 months post exposure.

[nikkieh]

I dont know, the testing confuses me too,. I took some nursing classes and I understand how the body works. The probelm is everyone says with HIV the antibodies take longer to respond to the virus. So honeslty its hard to say. Probally best to re-test to make sure. Thats what i did. Now im waiting for the results and praying for the best and that i dont fall off the deep end in the meantime. Ive cried, prayed and honeslty im just to the point right now where im so scared i dont know what to do. I too took the test early at 5 weeks but im not sure if the results were right.

[Mitch82]

12 weeks post exposure is when a HIV test is conclusive