POZ Community Forums
HIV Prevention and Testing => Do I Have HIV? => Topic started by: needanswers11111 on August 19, 2012, 05:45:11 am
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I have been to many forums looking for an answer or at least trying to alleviate my anxiety. But all I can get is a either a yes or no answer as to if I had a risk or not. I want to know your opinion based on what I'm experiencing.
I'm a straight male. On July 14, I had protected sex with a sex worker. Sex lasted for over 30 minutes and I changed condoms 3 times and I don't think one of them broke. She gave me unprotected oral sex several times which they said was not a risk.
10 days later, on July 24 I had a mild fever that lasted for 3 days but almost after it went away, I had diarrhea. Diarrhea was watery and persistent. I went to the hospital and found that cbc and stool exam were all normal. The doctor said it was just acute gastro-enteritis. But during this time I was already experiencing anxiety towards having HIV. All I could think about was my hiv-scare.
Days went by and I was always depressed, always feeling a bit under the weather but no real fever nor body weakness. Each day I wake up, the first thing that pops in my mind is HIV. I'm at the edge of losing it!
My appetite went back but my digestion is very erratic. Diarrhea is very intermittent. One day I have a few episodes of watery stools, the next day I'll pass normal consistency but very hard to pass stool. This went on for three weeks so yesterday (August 18) I was referred to a gastro specialist and performed several procedures. Creatinine is normal, SGPT is high (I have fatty liver), CBC shows all components within normal range. They did colonoscopy and found a mild swelling in my colon, and a slight internal hemorrhoid. Although the doctor said these couldn't have caused the on and off diarrhea.
I'm on antibiotics now and the doctor would wait and see how my digestion reacts to the treatment. All this time I have been smoking too much because of anxiety and have been having a bit of productive cough. Each time I think about HIV, I begin to feel panicked and depressed afterwards. Sometimes I feel like I'm having a fever but it never really breaks out. I kept feeling my nodes and some of them became stiff and sore because of constantly feeling them (I hope).
Today is the start of the 6th week since my last protected sex with the sex worker. My girlfriend and I had unprotected sex on July 16, two days after the said incident and she does not feel any symptoms so far (thank God!). I can't wait to get tested on the three-month mark and I hope it returns a negative result.
My questions are:
1.) Do the symptoms occur all at once or is it possible for them to occur one after the other?
2.) If my diarrhea is ARS related, is it possible to go on and off and go over 3 weeks?
3.) Is productive cough part of ARS?
4.) Can you describe the swollen nodes in ARS?
5.) What was my risk of acquiring the virus?
I just want to air this out and want to know what your opinions are. I know that HIV cannot be diagnosed by symptoms alone but my question is if my symptoms relate to ARS. Thank you and may peace of mind be with you all!
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You never had an exposure.
HIV is transmitted by;
Unprotected penetrative anal and/or vaginal sex
Sharing works with other IV drug abusers
Mother to child
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Hello Rod,
They said unprotected oral sex has low or negligible risk, but the risk is real. She also did it several times, does the risk make it higher? Given the fact that I changed condoms 3 times, I'm worried that during removal and replacement of condoms some vaginal fluid lodged at the tip of my penis.
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HIV is not transmitted by oral sex.
No incident HIV infections among MSM who practice exclusively oral sex.
Int Conf AIDS 2004 Jul 11-16; 15:(abstract no. WePpC2072)??Balls JE, Evans JL, Dilley J, Osmond D, Shiboski S, Shiboski C, Klausner J, McFarland W, Greenspan D, Page-Shafer K?University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
Oral transmission of HIV, reality or fiction? An update
J Campo1, MA Perea1, J del Romero2, J Cano1, V Hernando2, A Bascones1
Oral Diseases (2006) 12, 219–228
AIDS: Volume 16(17) 22 November 2002 pp 2350-2352
Risk of HIV infection attributable to oral sex among men who have sex with men and in the population of men who have sex with men
Page-Shafer, Kimberlya,b; Shiboski, Caroline Hb; Osmond, Dennis Hc; Dilley, Jamesd; McFarland, Willie; Shiboski, Steve Cc; Klausner, Jeffrey De; Balls, Joycea; Greenspan, Deborahb; Greenspan
Page-Shafer K, Veugelers PJ, Moss AR, Strathdee S, Kaldor JM, van Griensven GJ. Sexual risk behavior and risk factors for HIV-1 seroconversion in homosexual men participating in the Tricontinental Seroconverter Study, 1982-1994 [published erratum appears in Am J Epidemiol 1997 15 Dec; 146(12):1076]. Am J Epidemiol 1997, 146:531-542.
Studies which show the fallacy of relying on anecdotal evidence as opposed to carefully controlled study insofar as HIV transmission risk is concerned:
Jenicek M. "Clinical Case Reporting" in Evidence-Based Medicine. Oxford: Butterworth–Heinemann; 1999:117
Saltzman SP, Stoddard AM, McCusker J, Moon MW, Mayer KH. Reliability of self-reported sexual behavior risk factors for HIV infection in homosexual men. Public Health Rep. 1987 102(6):692–697.Nov–Dec;
Catania JA, Gibson DR, Chitwood DD, Coates TJ. Methodological problems in AIDS behavioral research: influences on measurement error and participation bias in studies of sexual behavior. Psychol Bull. 1990 Nov;108(3):339–362.
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> july 14 protected vaginal insertion, unprotected oral (she sucked me without the condom - several times)
> july 16 had unprotected sex with my girlfriend but she did not feel any symptoms up to now
> july 20 i had mild fever for 3 days
> july 23 i had diarrhea (almost all water), but no fever
> diarrhea lasted for 3 weeks. lost 6 kilograms
> aug 18 i had colonoscopy. there was a slight inflammation in my colon and internal hemorrhoids but is less likely to cause the diarrhea
> aug 19, diarrhea went away after starting metronidazole
> aug 24 oral thrush, still have it today (maybe because of metronidazole?)
> have swollen lymph nodes at the back of my neck, collar bone and aching in some lymph areas
the timing and coincidence is killing me :(
all stool exams and cbc came back normal so i really don't know what caused the chronic diarrhea.
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You never had an exposure as you were already advised.
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Protected vaginal sec carries no risk for HIV.
Getting your penis sucked carries no risk for HIV.
Not sure where to go from here, except to look forward to tomorrow.
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I guess I'm just confused as to why all these things happened coincidentally.
> maybe the diarrhea was caused by antibiotics? i started amoxicillin a day before the diarrhea first appeared
> it became chronic. maybe because it was mixed with extreme anxiety?
> diarrhea went away after 3 weeks when i started metronidazole. does that mean it was bacterial infection?
> i developed oral thrush. maybe because of the metronidazole?
I hope I can stitch things up and have a clearer answer as to what's going on with me right now.
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need,
1. Antibiotics commonly cause diarrhea.
2. Possibly. Given that it started to resolve after you initiated metronidazole points to the fact that it was caused by a bacterial infection that amoxicillin couldn't fix. You need different types of antibiotics for different types of bacteria.
3. Yes. Metronidazole is a very strong antibiotic.
4. Yes. Antibiotics also kill our friendly bacteria, which keeps the organism that causes thrush in check. We ALL - poz and neg - have this thrush-causing organism (Candida albicans) on and in our bodies at all times.
The bottom line for you is that you did NOT have a risk for hiv infection. Whatever has been going on with you has NOTHING to do with hiv.
Ann