Dry throat after analingus

[helloworld2048]

Hello Doctor,

I live in the US and had sex with an asian prostitute. The act involved condom protected vaginal sex, condom protected fellatio, unprotected cunnilingus, unprotected analingus (both giving and receiving) and deep kissing. I developed a dry throat 2 days after that (no pain per se, but just a lot of dryness in the throat). I DO NOT have any other symptoms such as fever, rash, headache, myalgia etc. The dry throat has been persistent for a little over a week.

I am very worried that it might be gonorrhea of the throat and maybe something worse. I have been using the standard salt water gargle, but it hasn't helped much. Please help!

[Edward W Hook, MD]

The chance of getting HIV from performing oral sex on an infected partner is no greater than 1 in 10,000, if the partner is infected. Syphilis from oral sex is very, very unusual but hard to quantify.  I am not aware of data that hepatitis C is transmitted through oral sex of any sort.

Sadly there is no vaccine for hepatitis C at this time. EWH

[helloworld2048]

Thank you for the input doctor. One last question before I can live in peace: what is the chance of HIV, HepatitisC, and Syphilis from this kind of exposure?

Also, is a Hep C vaccine available in the United States? I am already vaccinated against Hep B.

Thanks for your prompt assistance!

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to the Forum.  As I suspect you know, oral sex is a relatively low risk activity and STIs following oral sex are uncommon. When they occur however, they tend to be asymptomatic and I have never heard that a dry throat is a manifestation of any oral STI.  It is hard for me to relate your symptoms to any STI.  On the other hand, testing is quite easy so if you choose to be entirely sure, I would not hesitate to test, anticipating that this will be primarily for the purpose of providing you with assurance that you were not infected.

I hope this comment is helpful. EWH

[helloworld2048]

I should add that I am male and the other person, female.