First Thread: Also ANOTHER Symptom Thread

[mike_hunt]

Hi Everybody,
     
                   My name's Michael and i'm 17 years old. 3 months ago (around april 17th) I had sex with an older guy. We had a total of 3 encounters in which I performed oral on him 4 times (swallowed twice, didn't' get that far the other times), he sucked me a few times (I actually couldn't even feel anything so I kept making him stop. . .I have never ejaculated and felt very little pleasure from sex) and got anally penetrated once (didn't finish in me. . .was very painful so I made him stop. He slid it in me without a condom. there was no precum or semen).

 The next day I woke up to use the bathroom and I felt completely swollen inside. . .you know how when guys go in the morning the bladder puts pressure on the prostate and they fart a little as the pressure is stadily released? Well I didn't get that. . .tried to use the bathroom and couldn't even strain. I noticed I was bleeding so there's a long complicated story where I douched myself out with a water bottle, and I wound up bleeding for 6 days before it stopped. I was swollen inside and had trouble using the bathroom up until about june when I used preparation H suppositories, which completely took away the swelling. Also two days after this happend I noticed a weird rash/breakout/redness all over my neck, I ahd aslight sore throat, and the lymph nodes on the side of my neck were a bit swollen.I figured I might have some kind of infection (abcess or something) so I started eating alot of garlic, taking organic coconut oil, eating fruits and vegetables, drinking ginger tea etc (all of these have been shown to kill viruses/bactera/cleanse the digestive tract and blood). THe sore throat and swollen nodes went away after only a day or two of eating raw garlic, so I didn't think about it anymore.

 I did a "cleanse" this for 6 days (starting in about early July). . .taking vitamins, taking coconut oil, supplementing with food-grade hydrogen peroxide, drinking spirulina etc. On the 6th night I felt feverish. I had my mom and brother feel my forehead about 200 times that night and they kept telling me it didn't feel like I had a fever. I tried to lay down but it got too hot under the covers. . .I started feeling like a zombie so I took another few drops of peroxide in a 20 ounce cup of cold water.
 
 Following me so far? Choose my appropriate response according to your answer: Okay/I hope/Damn if you aren't lol

 OKAY, so. . .after I drank the peroxide the feverish symptoms went away and I felt amazingly relieved. I went to sleep and felt fine. . .that day we were going about our business and shopping around town, walking etc. I noticed I started getting dizzy (usually when i'd be sitting so I could read the bottom shelf of something at a store and then tried to stand up fast). My brother told me to inhale a little bit of peppermint oil, and that did temporarily get rid of the dizziness. We figured it was because I didnt' eat, because i've been cleansing too much etc.
 
 Alright, so that night I remember the lymph nodes, read about it online and get told that it's a sign of a bacterial, microbial or viral infection, I start feeling all the lymph nodes on my neck, in my groin etc. The node sin my neck weren't swollen at all, but in the shower I noticed the one between my let leg and groin was about the size of a quarter and was easily moveable. . .felt swollen. Over the course of about 4 more days I got scared and started researching heavily online and I kept finding that it's either mononucleosis or HIV. I went into a depression, I was shaking and  I lost my appetite. Then I noticed the swollen nodes in my neck came back so did the strange reddish rash/break out on my neck.

 The next day my throat started feeling swollen and my mom noticed that I had a red breakout on my shoulder. I was still scared so I got in the shower and washed with hot water, and then rinsed with cold water and the redness went away completely. I felt much better, but later that night I noticed that I had redness all over my chest, shoulder, my upper back and going down my left arm. I was freaking out about this.

 Following me so far? Choose my appropriate response according to your answer: Okay/I hope/Damn if you aren't lol

 Then I stopped getting sleep. . .I used to stay up until like 4 or 6 int he morning and wake up at 12 or 1 in the afternoon and I felt fine. All of a sudden I was knocking out at 11:30 at night, waking up at 3 in the morning and then waking up every hour after that. This went on for about 5 days until I was getting really exhausted. . .waking up with my heart pounding and finally deciding to stay up when I woke at 7:55 every morning. I started feeling like a total zombie during the daytime. . .yawning, having no energy. . .I started walking around down.

 (bad paragraph breaks, i'm sorry, but I don't want to make someone read a fucking thesis, or something)

 Then a few days ago I noticed my tongue was white. . .I scraped it off but ti took awhile. I brushed my teeth as usual and I noticed the dry mouth came back a few minutes later. . .my tongue was all white so I gargled with peroxide and it foamed up ALOT. I did this a few times until it didn't foam anymore. . .I kept getting dry mouth and the rash on the right side of my neck kept coming and going. I asked the local pharmacists what the breakout on my neck is an dthey said they've never seen anything like it before, and that it's normal to get that when cleansing. They said i'd need to get a bloodtest.
 
 So I felt exhausted up until I suddenly got my appetite back. . .this took a couple of days to get used to eating again. Ten two night ago I got 5 hours of rest in a row without waking up. . .I keep waking up every two hours or so after that but I actually feel like i'm getting some rest now. The last thing i've noticed is that last night I had a couple of itchy pimple son my upper back and when I looked in the mirror there was a HUGE patch of red with like, streaks coming out of it. I got in the shower and ran cool water on it and it didnt' seem to help, so I went to sleep.
 
 Okay, this all happened within 3 months. August 17th will be the 4 month anniversary. I was referred to this forum from another forum where I talked about my symptoms and I wnated to ask people that actually HAVE HIV if they got any of these symptoms. . .I get told that you dont' get symptoms for years after infection. None of you can diagnose me or anything, and i'm fully aware of this. I want to ask you guys because you have it and I figure that you'd be able to tell me if i'm having symptoms of it or not?
 
 I'm so sorry to have such a long post. . .if you want you can ask me questions and I can answer them one at a time but i've had so much on my mind. . .I don't know if it's because i'm releasing toxins in my body from getting an anal infection/all the toxins I used to have in my diet etc), if I have a virus, if I Got a abcterial infection or what. I just know that when I felt like a zombie until I soaked in hot water. . .when I did that I felt completely normal and I got happy. Is it normal for HIV symptoms to go away after bathing? lol I don't think so. .
 
 
OKAY i'll stop typing now. Sheesh this took me an hour already. lol Thanks ahead of time.

Edit: I forgot to mention that for a couple of days I had alot of clear mucusy bubbles in my urine. Has anyone with early HIV gotten that?

[Ann]

Mike,

All the symptoms you took an hour to type out are irrelevant. Symptoms or even the lack of symptoms mean nothing when it comes to diagnosing hiv. ONLY testing will reliably reveal your hiv status.

As it has been nearly four months since your encounter, you can test now for a conclusive result. (the hiv window is three months) As you HAVE had a risk in unprotected anal intercourse, you DO need to test. It doesn't matter if he didn't ejaculate - you were still at risk. 

Please test as soon as you can.

Hopefully you will test negative and learn from this experience. You need to be using condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, every time, no exceptions until such time as you are in a securely monogamous relationship where you have both tested for ALL sexually transmitted infections together. To agree to have unprotected intercourse is to consent to the possibility of being infected with an STI. Sex with a condom lasts only a matter of minutes, but hiv is forever.

Have a look through all three condom and lube links in my signature line so you can use condoms with confidence.

Anyone who is sexually active should be having a full sexual health care check-up, including but not limited to hiv testing, at least once a year and more often if unprotected intercourse occurs.

If you aren't already having regular, routine check-ups, now is the time to start. As long as you make sure condoms are being used for intercourse, you can fully expect your routine hiv tests to return with negative results. Don't forget to always get checked for all the other sexually transmitted infections as well, because they are MUCH easier to transmit than hiv.

Ann

PS - please don't bother trying to ask more questions about symptoms - we don't discuss them here for the reasons I stated in my first paragraph.

[Andy Velez]

Hi Mike,

I'm glad you found your way here as it sounds like it has been scary and confusing dealing with these experiences and the after-effects.

First off, you do need to get tested for HIV. You had some unprotected intercourse, which is the main issue related to that. Since you are more than 13 weeks past those incidents, you can get tested anytime now and get a reliable result. Hopefully you will test negative.

The symptoms you have been experiencing are not in  any way HIV-specific. But then you need to know for future reference that neither the presence nor the absence of symptoms will ever tell you anything accurately about your HIV status. Only an HIV test taken at the proper time will give you that answer.

Right now you may not be thinking very much about having sex -- or maybe you are. Read our lesson on Transmission. There's a link to it in the Welcome thread which opens this section. You'll get all of the basics there. The main thing is to always make sure that if intercourse is involved, whoever is the insertive partner is always, without exception, wearing a latex condom.

As far as oral is concerned, someone giving it to you is no risk to you for HIV transmisison. Giving oral to another guy is mainly risky in theory. The few reported cases of transmission in that manner have been very unreliable. It's generally thought that ejaculation orally may raise the risk.

The symptoms you have been experiencing are something you should discuss with your doctor. We can't diagnose them here. There are other STDs out there which are much more easily acquired than HIV, so whenever there are symptoms it's always a good idea to check things out medically.

You're welcome here to ask questions. Get yourself tested. Good luck with your test and keep us posted.

Cheers,

[mike_hunt]

Alright,
         I'm sorry. I keep thinking that it's terrible because i'm not even gay. . .I was confused and thought I was gay when I was going through puberty and when I tried it a few times and found out that I absolutely DO NOT like it. . .everybody knows HIV is stereotyped as a "gay disease," and the political correctness of is irrelevant. If I have it I will die making the biggest mistake of my life and that haunts me.


 One thing that bothers me is there are so many forums and websites online where people talk about their symptoms. You can ask doctors and they answer questions about your symptoms, and all they ever say is "It's useless to ask me, so go to a real doctor." Well, my question is. . .if it's useless to talk about symptoms why does this part of the forum exist? Why do so many websites like webmd.com and so many others exist where you can ask a doctor about your symptoms when the standard answer is "I don't know. Ask someone who can help you instead?"

 I sincerely hope I don't get banned from this forum or cause any trouble. . .i'm sorry you guys, i'm just typing. lol I doubt i'll be making too many other threads anyways.

[Ann]

Mike,

This forum does not exist to talk about symptoms, it exists to talk about hiv prevention, transmission and testing. No more, no less.

The rest of the forums are a means of moral support for people who are living with hiv.

Unless you test positive, you should not be making new threads anyway - please make sure you read the Welcome Thread and take note of our posting guidelines.

I do hope you're planning on being tested - not just for hiv, but for all the other STIs you put yourself at risk for by having unprotected intercourse. Good luck with that and keep us posted.

And by the way - you need to be using condoms, every time, no exceptions, whether you are with a man or a woman. Hiv does not care what your sexual orientation is and there are plenty of heterosexuals living with hiv to prove that it isn't a "gay" disease. In fact, there are more women infected world-wide than there are men. Don't take chances, use condoms.

Ann