Recurrent

[hypomess]

Hello, I have something on my mind that it is bugging me.

About 3 months ago, I had sex with a girl and she got her period, I was condom protected, condom did not break or fail as far as I know. Since I have a great paranoia towards HIV, I have been suffering from anxiety ever since, especially because I do not know if when I took the condomo off some blood could have gone in my urethra or somethign similar. 3 weeks after that ordeal I got a cold, or at least think that was what it was (began with sore/bruning throat, then runny nose, and finally cough, did not get fever nor knocke me down) this is the reason why I think it is a cold, I actually do not know how to differentiate a cold from a flu besides fever.

After that cold that lasted for about a week, I got another one about 5 weeks later, and now 2 weeks after that I am getting symptoms like a cold is coming down again or a flu.

Please help me in the following:
1. How long does HIV virus leave once exposed?
2. Since in the past I normally get 2 colds during the year, and now I am most certainly coming down with my third in a 3 month period, could this mean something is wrong with me, maybe I got infected? I have only gotten colds after this experience this year.

Please somebody help me with this since it has me a bit nervous. In another post some fine and nice people told me I was not at risk, but still have this nervousness every now and then.

Because of this I developed what I think was a bad anxiety case, got really depressed, tired, beaten up, felt desperate, like crying, had a really bad intermittent skin burning sensation in my uppper back, neck and upper arms (at least I think this was due to anxiety), got about 15 red bumps on my back, thought more about negative things than positive ones, saw nothing good, really sad, etcc...

PLeas ehelp me.

[Ghilly]

You are stressing yourself something awful over this, I can feel it in your words.  They have done studies to see how stress affects a person's immune system.  They measured what the immunity levels were before the test and then they gave difficult math problems to people of several different ages, and every one of those people's immune systems after testing them again were considerably lower than they were before the test.  And that was one test that really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, it was only for research!  That means that we cannot control how our bodies react to stress, they just react.

You have yourself so worked up over this that I have a feeling that all the colds you've been getting are related to the fact that you literally have yourself worried sick over this.  The chances are EXTREMELY low that anything happened to you that day.  As Mellie suggested, you could just have a HIV test done to put your mind at ease. If you Google it, the odds of getting HIV from one encounter are 1 in 1300.  Just calm down about it because you are only going to continue to make yourself sicker if you don't get your stress under control.

Ghilly

[hypomess]

Thank you very much for your response, it really calms me down and makes lots of sense. The pain I have felt in my eyelids is not recent, I have suffered from it in the past w/o ever finding a cause, but since my HIV fear I thought it got worse, it is pretty terrible to be an HIV anxiety fellow.
God bless.

[J_Netta]

All the stress that you are experiencing can cause your immune system to be very low. Are you taking daily vitamins? If you aren't maybe you should try that to build up your immune system and see how it goes.

Hope it helps!

[mellie4]

I would seriously doubt you exposed yourself to anything.  I think you getting colds is a coincidence.  Or it could be allergies.  If you are this anxious, maybe you need to go to your primary care and ask for a HIV test.  This would put your mind at ease once and for all.  If you're not comfortable going to your doctor (and if you're not, you  should find one you are comfortable with,) you could go to a clinic or a walk-in doctor and have the test done.

Not that you asked, but maybe you should wait a little while before becoming intimate with someone.  That way you'd really know the person and wouldn't have these kind of worries.  Intimacy in a relationship is much better than being sexual with someone you don't know or have a bond with.

I think there is a forum on MedHelp for STDs and/or AIDS.  You may want to post your question there for more responses.  This forum is people dealing with chronic pain.