Brief unprotected sex followed by illness

[scrd1234]

Hi there, thanks for your forum, I have been reading it intensely!

28 days ago I had brief unprotected sex with a 52 year old married woman in Holland, we were both very drunk and at a party. She gave me oral sex and I penetrated her from behind for definitely not more than a minute, due to the amount of alchohol Id consumed I think I had trouble keeping a full erection but I did enter her fully. I did not wash myself until the next morning. I examined my penis in the shower and I showed no signs of any cuts or abrasions. I spoke to her neighbour and friend and he assured me that I had nothing to worry about with her.

48 hours later I started sweating (mainly at night during sleep), feeling weak and unwell. This lasted for 3 days and then went. During this period I was fretting awfully about the chances of me haviing contracted HIV. I am a worrier and when I start to worry it overtakes everything.

I went to a GUM clinic and the lasy there assured me that HIV symptoms did not occur so early and that the chances of this woman being HIV+ were 0.1-0.4% (figures for sexually active people in Holland) and that If she was HIV+ then my chances in one encounter of contracting it with penetratvie vaginal sex were a similar odds, therefore the chances of that encounter meaning contracting HIV were highly unlikely.

Those symtoms went after about 3 days, as I calmed down but the tension in my head stayed.

Exactly 2 weeks later I was out drinking and I started to feel unwell. This was the start of a two week illness for me where the sweating started again, general feeling of illness and a raw throat (not sore though, just raw). A week into this, the niggling cough I had developed and I started coughing up phlegm from my chest. I have also had problems with dizzyness. Ive had no diahorrea, no vomiting and Im pretty sure no rash (although I do redden on my neck and chest but this is possibly due to anxiety). My blood pressure is up. The feeling in my head is one of being very distant, possibly also due to anxiety.

The sweating I have is usualy with a fever that lasts no more than 15 minutes, I can regulate the fever by moving into a different room. The fevers come rarely so far I have had only 5 isolated incidents over the 28 days, each one going as soon as it comes.

I went to my doctor, told him of my symptoms and my worries. He thinks its just a viral infection, there are a lot of them about he says.

Im considering a DUO test but Im scared of a false positive.

Im in a relationship and the worry that I have been so disrespectful to my partner is hurting my mind, I constantly envisiage myself telling her I have been unfaithful and contracted HIV and I worry about the effect this would have on her.

At the moment Im not sure if my anxiety is heghtening my symtoms or the other way around.

Ive been faithful for so long, this one encounter has changed my thinking forever. I wont disrespect my health and the health of others ever again.

Is this so called low risk encounter coupled with my symptoms reason for me to worry so much?

Thank you in advance

x

[Andy Velez]

First of all, there is nothing in any way HIV specific about your symptoms. Secondly, ARS if it is going to happen does not come and go as your symptoms have. It appears for a couple of weeks more or less and then is gone.

Yes, you had a risk. It was a relatively low one. HIV is not an easy virus to transmit. It is significantly harder to transmit from female to male as contrasted with the other way around. And this was a single and apparently quite brief happening. Nothing else you did sexually put you at risk.

My expectation is that you will test negative. To be absolutely sure of your negative status you should test at 3 months for a conclusive result. You can test initially at 6 weeks post the event. A negative at that point will strongly point the way to your continuing to test negative.

I expect you to come out of this ok. Avoid excessive drinking and casual sex together in the future. As you have learned, it's a dangerous combination.

[scrd1234]

Thanks for your reply Andy.

Could I also ask, if my fever came and then disappeared for 6 days and then came back again, then disappeared and resurfaced 7 days later, in your experience you would say as this is not constant, this is not ARS?

Also, am I right in beleiving that 48 hours after the encounter is too quickly for symptoms to appear?

Thanks again.

[Andy Velez]

Yes, 48 hours is too soon for ARS to appear. And ARS symptoms do not appear, disappear and return. They come at once, last for a couple of weeks and then are gone.