Broken condom exposure

[Alex06]

Hi poz community hope this finds you all well. To get to the point had a condom break with a csw late december it was brief as i realised straight away but was completely snapped in half. Nightmare: anyway since then 10 days later i had pressure and abdominal pain urge to urinate was immense thinking i had a uti went to doctor no uti!! Pain continued and the following week i had fever. Getting worried i went for sti checkup all negative including hiv this was 4 weeks after and had a duo test. Since then everything has gotten worse have had swollen cervical lymph nodes in neck under arms and groin, stiff neck waking up with tingly fingers and aching muscles elbows and generally. red gums and throat my doctor has no idea whats going on here. Panicking i have had several tests all duo 28 days 6 weeks and 8 weeks post incident all negative. Its now 11 weeks and still having muscle aches and red gums and swollen painfull nodes. Im at a loss and deeply worried. I have been reading here for a while now but really need some advice 12 weeks test next week!!! I am not confident at all.

[Andy Velez]

Alex, technically you did have a risk with the condom breaking, but it was a very low level one and unlikely to result in transmission. In fact I've never known of a case of transmission happening in that manner. The condon protected you until it broke. It was a single incident and HIV is much harder to transmit from female to male than the other way around. All of which argue against infection having taken place. As do your several negative HIV tests.

Just to be absolutely sure of your negative status it's a good idea to test at 3 months. I expect you to test negative.

Naturally your various symptoms are scaring you. But none of them are HIV specific in anyway. You need to be discussing them with your doctor to find the real cause(s).

I expect you to come out of this ok as far as HIV is concerned.

[Alex06]

Hi Andy

Thank you for the quick reply i am trying to stay hopeful, im just sinking under a raft of "symptoms" all seem to be appearing out of no where for no reason.

Losing hair pretty quickly too!! It would seem. I forgot to mention also that i didnt supply the condom so can not validate its efficiency at all. Pretty dumb huh!!

Ill keep my 3rd post for the result of the test next week but i am rather scared to say the least. Again thanks for your reply! Just to clarify a standard antibody test ok at 12 weeks?

[Alex06]

Dear Andy,Anne

As promised i said i would return with the results of my 12 week (84 day) test, exposure was 20th Dec 13 and i took the test today 14th March 14, i am happy to say that it was Negative using another 4th generation test.

as this is my last post (and im certainly not going to go on after this) i do have a couple of questions if you would be so kind as to try and answer them or provide advice as much as you can or are willing.

1. i had the test today as i said it was a 4th generation test using Roche HIV Combi PT lab stated that this uses an 18 minute cycle on a fully automated immunoassebly analyser (Cobas E411) therefore i had the results back within 2 hours does this sound usual?? these tests have not been done in the US/UK

2. i also had the CSW tested on sunday as well using a standard antibody test which also came back negative this as per the 12 week testing put her negative 5 days before i met her she originated from Ethiopia my question here, should i be satisfied that this test would at 12 weeks pick up all subtypes within this region also.

3. this may sound rediculous i know but the doctor here has stated again that i should test out to 6 months, can i take it from you guys here that he is just totally wrong on this? bearing in mind that i do not have cancer neither do i have any immune disorders or do IV drugs. given what was written in my exposure if it were you in the position would you happily continue with your life knowing that you were HIV free!!

aside from the fact i do need to find out what is actually wrong with me i also did a further syphillis RPR today results pending as i have learnt here that it shares the same window period.


lastly i just want to thank you all for your support in answering questions and dealing with people here daily i appreciate you give so much of im sure your already busy lives to answer peoples doubts and reassure them as much as possible. i very much have learnt from this incident and it will not be repeated. i wish you all a very long and healthy life from reading a lot recently i am sure a functional cure or a full cure will not be too long away!!

thank you again!

Alex 

[Jeff G]

Congratulations you are HIV negative .

1 . You should trust the test .

2 . Leave the poor woman alone, only your status matters .

3. Three months is the standard the cdc uses and you need not test beyond this date for a conclusive result .