please help! lots of symptoms! swollen nodes, bad fevers all the time!

[worriedbad:(]

back in Dec 2010, I come down with walking pneumonia. Well ever since then it seemed as if I was always getting low grade fevers that lasted for months and constant yeast infections. Well I searched online and aids kept coming up. I got tested and was negative. Well in May of this year I  had an encounter with a possible HIV positive. About a month after we were dating, my lymph nodes on the left side of my neck started to swell and they are still a little swollen. I also think I have one in the groin area. After that I went and got tested two times but was not at the three month point and I was neg. Now again, im sick with a bad cough, runny nose, and a fever of 99-101 that does not seem to go away. I've had it now for about a month. Seems like I am always sick! No sore throat really but I am tired all the time! I recently went to the hospital and they did a wbc count. My white blood cell was a little high and my liver enzymes were a little low. I know that with HIV your white blood cells will go down but I have been told that at first they will go up due to your body trying to fight it off. So I i am having persistent fevers, yeast infections, fatigue, and swollen glands in neck, groin, and I believe one in the armpit. The last two testing were negative but I am now at the three month mark and the health dept in my area will not see me again because I been so many times with my yeast, bacterial infections that they say I just need to see a doctor but I do not have insurance. I am so tired of being sick all of the time! Also I have not noticed a rash but I have recently got acne on my face that I can not seem to get rid of! And my periods are recently irregular. And when I get sick, my fever lasts for a month lots of times. Please help me! Does this sound like HIV?

[Ann]

worried,

Provided your last two tests were at or later than six weeks following your risk, then you are highly unlikely to be hiv positive.

The vast majority of people who have actually been infected will seroconvert and test positive by six weeks, with the average time to seroconversion being only 22 days.

A six week (or more) negative must be confirmed at the three month point, but is highly unlikely to change.

You don't say what activity you believe put you at risk, but unless it was unprotected anal or vaginal intercourse or you've been sharing drug injecting equipment, then you haven't been at risk for hiv.

You can find a different place for your conclusive test (provided you actually had a risk, if you did not have a risk, you don't need further hiv testing) by putting your zip code into poz.com's Health Services Directory.

Regarding your symptoms, none of them are hiv specific and could be caused by any one of a large number of things. You'll have to somehow find a doctor you can work with who can find out what, if anything, is actually wrong with you.

Here's what you need to know in order to avoid hiv infection:

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 without a condom lasts only a matter of minutes, but hiv is forever.

Have a look through the 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. Some of the other STIs can be present with no obvious symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to test.

Use condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, correctly and consistently, and you will avoid hiv infection. It really is that simple!

Ann

[worriedbad:(]

Thank you for your comment. It was vaginal. We dated for about 3 months. It was about a month after we started dating  I noticed my lymph nodes became swollen and I got sick. This started around June. We got together may this year. I started having irregular periods and more yeast infections. I got over the "cold" but now I have it again and have had it for almost a month. I went to the hospital and they did not test for HIV but were concerned. I guess another question I have would be would your white blood cell count do up a little before it would down being that your body is trying to fight it off? And would your liver enzymes have anything to do with it? Mine were a little low. And I've had a doctor tell me that HIV could take up to 5 years before it can show up in blood but from I read online I hear 3 months or 6 at the latest? It does worry me because the guy I was dating I found out used meth. Being reason for our break up, I don't know if he shot up or not. Also about a month ago I had a little crack in the corner of my mouth and then read that was also a sign of thrush and I do have white spots on the tongue but have not been diagnosed so I cannot say for sure.  But when i did the water in a glass test i failed it. And then I realized the guy I was dating with possible exposure had a bad fever blister at one time. Just hard to believe all this is coincidental. i really hope this is not HIV or something serious. I am grateful for this forum and thank everyone for their time and after this, positive or not, I would advice everyone to use protection at all times!! Its really not worth it!! And for everyone who thinks they may or they are HIV+, I will pray for you and stay strong!! But please tell me what you think about the questions I just asked at the beginning of this paragraph. Thank you so much again for your time and God Bless all!!

[Ann]

Worried,

would your white blood cell count do up a little before it would down being that your body is trying to fight it off?

Your total lymphocyte count (white blood cell count aka WBC) will never tell you a single thing about your hiv status. I've been poz for over fifteen years and never has my total lymphocyte count been in anything other than normal ranges.

The WBCs we (hiv positive people) track are a specific subset of WBCs (CD4s) and their level is not reflected in the overall WBC count.

High WBC counts usually point to a bacterial infection, not a viral infection.

And would your liver enzymes have anything to do with it? Mine were a little low.

Absolutely not. Hiv does not affect liver enzymes. Low liver enzymes are not normally a concern. HIGH liver enzymes are what you want to worry about.

And I've had a doctor tell me that HIV could take up to 5 years before it can show up in blood but from I read online I hear 3 months or 6 at the latest?

That doctor needs to go back to medical school because his thinking is thirty years out of date. While many people can be infected for five years or longer before they start getting sick, hiv antibodies can be detected in the blood by six weeks - twelve weeks at the very latest.

Hiv itself can usually be detected in the blood within an average of ten days, but the tests that look for hiv - rather than hiv antibodies - are not used as diagnostic tools except for a very few, very specific circumstances. The tests that look for hiv are very expensive and that's only one of the reasons they are not used for diagnosis.

But when i did the water in a glass test i failed it.

I bet you did. That test is pure quackery and most people will fail it whether or not they have oral thrush. To put it bluntly, the "water test" is a load of bullshit. Only a doctor can diagnose oral thrush, and only when a swab is taken and tested.

And then I realized the guy I was dating with possible exposure had a bad fever blister at one time.

"Fever blisters" or "cold sores" are another name for herpes. Herpes and hiv are two very different viruses. Herpes is spread through skin-to-skin contact, UNLIKE hiv. Up to 80% of people have herpes. While it's a life-long infection, it's normally only a serious problem if a woman has an active genital herpes outbreak when giving birth (it can cause blindness in the baby). Genital and oral herpes are basically the same animal and you can get genital herpes from oral sex and visa-versa.

I would advice everyone to use protection at all times!!

Well, you got that right! Sex without a condom lasts only a matter of minutes, but hiv is forever. I hope you learn from this and insist on condoms from here on out. No glove, no love baby!

As I said to you yesterday, with the negative results you have had so far, you are highly unlikely to be hiv positive. You still need to have that confirmed at the three month point and I hope you use the directory I linked you to yesterday so you can find another testing center near you.

I totally sympathise with you concerning not having health insurance and therefore not having easy access to medical care. I hope you're not planning on voting for Romney, because if he gets into office things are only going to get worse for people like you. Make sure you get out and vote for President Obama - he's doing his level best to insure all Americans have access to affordable health care.

In the mean-time, ask around to see if there is some program you qualify for so you can get to the bottom of what's going on with you. (Have you tried Planned Parenthood?) Whatever that may be, with the negative results you've had so far it's highly unlikely to have anything to do with hiv.

But please tell me what you think about the questions I just asked at the beginning of this paragraph.

And what a paragraph it was! This has nothing to do with hiv, but I beg you, PLEASE break what you're writing up into shorter paragraphs. When you write paragraphs of more than a few sentences, it is VERY difficult to read on a computer screen.

Ann

[worriedbad:(]

Thank you for your time commenting back.  I will definitely look for another place using that link. I'm going to do one more test and be done with it. I do want to know what's going on so I will see about what help I can get to see a doctor in my state. Thank you again and God Bless all of you! I don't think people realize how serious it is to use protection. Most think it would never happen to them. I pray they find a cure!

[Ann]

Worried,

Try to get a complete STI screen while you're at it.

BTW, regarding the yeast infections (I'm assuming you mean vaginal yeast infections), if you were given antibiotics when you had walking pneumonia, that could be the cause.

We all - hiv positive or hiv negative - have the organism that causes yeast (aka thrush) infections in and on our bodies. This organism is called Candida albicans.

We also have friendly bacteria in and on our bodies that keep the Candida in check. When we take antibiotics, they will also kill the friendly bacteria which then allows the Candida to grow unchecked and cause problems. If a yeast infection isn't properly treated, it can keep coming back. I've always had the yeast infection problem when taking antibiotics, long before I was hiv positive.

And once again, provided at least one of your negative test results was six weeks or more following your last incident of unprotected intercourse, you are highly unlikely to be hiv positive. Just get the confirmation so you can move on and explore other possible causes to your being unwell.

I hope you can find a way to see a doctor. Good luck!

Ann