POZ Community Forums
HIV Prevention and Testing => Do I Have HIV? => Topic started by: brianw on November 01, 2006, 03:55:49 pm
-
Last weekend I was at a club and my and two strange guys began giving each other blowjobs. We all sucked and recieved; no ejaculation in each others mouths (but I'm sure there was pre cum). I have read that recieving is not a risk for contracting hiv on the threads. I am beginning to worry about contracting hiv while sucking the other two though. I did take them deep in my mouth at one point too. My throught is starting to get sore and I feel like I'm getting a cold. I am worrying so much that I have a PCR-DNA test scheduled for later this week to test for any early traces of hiv. I am also testing for the other std's as well. Do you think I'm being paranoid? Thanks for any advice you can give me.
Brian
-
Do I think you are getting paranoid? Oh yeah. You can forget about the testing especially the PCR test. PCR testing is not used or approved for diagnosing HIV.
-
Brian, actually other STDs are much easier to catch than HIV. Some can be acquired just by skin to skin contact and certainly orally.
Just in general if you are sexually active it's a good idea to regularly have a full standard STD panel done. Annually is good and every six months is even better.
As far as HIV is concerned, the likelihood of transmission via giving oral is very, very unlikely, particularly if ejaculation did not take place.
Just as Rod said, the PCR was never designed to be used for diagnostic purposes, and if it is used it is recommended to do it at 28 days after a possibly risky incident. Your plan to do it now is simply too early for any kind of reliable result. Also, because of it's high level of sensitivity often it can yield a FALSE positive.
You are way overreacting to this incident. There is absolutely nothing HIV-specific about your symptoms, but then neither the presence nor the absence of symptoms will ever tell you anything accurately about your HIV status. If there has been a real risk then only an HIV test will give you a reliable answer and the CDC recommends doing that at 13 weeks past the risky incident.
Let's get real here. Think about it -- you had oral sex with a stranger whom you more or less deep throated. So is it really surprising you end up with a sore throat?
You're wasting your money on that PCR and you need to take a breath and chill out about this whole thing.
No kidding.
Cheers,
-
Thank you Rod and Andy for responding so fast to me. Now I'm a little confused....the lab testing company I spoke with on the phone said that the results were about 90% accurate at that stage for detecting hiv. Is that not true? Cause it is a lot of $$$ to waste. Wow it is going to be hard to wait 13 weeks to test....very worried.
-
Yes it's a lot of dollars to waste when it is not a confirmatory test, can give false positives and then you still have to retest at 13 weeks anyway. Why on earth would you take a test that could put you in anxiety spins when you would have to spend more money to get a confirmatory test to override the false positive PCR test. It's your dollar..
-
Aside from anything else a lab is a business and obviously makes money with fees being what they are for test like this.
In many cases a PCR can detect HIV within 48-72 hours, but it also as has been pointed out has a high incidence of FALSE positives.
Given that your risk was low to begin with and that you are likely to test negative, I would suggest you wait. You've already been told that the risk was very low. Wait out the time, stay productively busy and you will find the waiting period will pass more quickly than you imagine.
Alternatively, you can test at 6 weeks and then re-test at 13 weeks. The average time to seroconversion is 22 days and all but the smallest number who are going to seroconvert will do so within 4-6 weeks after an exposure. A negative result at 6 weeks is more than just encouraging.
But it's your money and your call.
-
You can forget about the testing especially the PCR test. PCR testing is not used or approved for diagnosing HIV.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=40288 (http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=40288)
Thats no longer true. FDA has recently approved a NAT assay manufactured by GenProbe for early detection of HIV. Remember, PCR is a type of NAT. The test that was approved is a qualitative test, which means it gives a yes/no answer, not the number of copies of the virus present. This test was already being used by Red Cross, the state of North Carolina as part of their STAT program for early detection of HIV. While PCR-DNA may not be the same test, it is to be noted here that PCR-DNA RARELY shows a false-positive result. Its the old PCR-RNA quantitative which sometimes returned a false positive, usually in very low viral load numbers. Even then the likelyhood of that happening is 2%-5%.
-
Checking,
You are not in any position to be giving advice in this forum and I'll thank you to stop.
Brian (the original poster) has a DNA PCR test scheduled, but the test you talk about is an RNA PCR test and there IS a difference.
Also, these tests are not meant to be used in low risk situations such as the one Brian describes. If Brian had unprotected receptive anal intercourse with someone who is known to be positive, THEN qualitative RNA PCR testing might be warranted. In this case (blowjobs) it is NOT.
And by the way, it's actually fairly common to get a false positive on the DNA test. We've seen it happen time and time again in these forums and it ain't pretty. There is also still a possibility of false positives with qualitative RNA PCR testing, although less than with quantitative RNA PCR testing.
Ann
-
I stand corrected but the test you mentioned is only a diagnostic test for HIV 1 and it still needs to have a confirmative test.
-
You are not in any position to be giving advice in this forum.
Ann,
Can you show me the requirements one must have to give advice on this forum? I suppose the rule is if you once ask a question in the Am I Infected Forum, you are classified as someone who should never give advice. Am I right? If yes, then kindly post this in the welcome thread or the terms of usage page. Pardon me, but I was under a different opinion about how a "forum" works. I was under the impression that moderation usually is exercised if the information is incorrect or abusive.
By the way, I was not giving any advice here. I was merely pointing out that Nucleic Acid testing is indeed approved now for qualitative diagnosis of HIV. The State of North Carolina and the Red Cross has already been using the same test for years now. Refer to the PubMed articles by Dr.Christopher Pilcher and Dr.Peter Leone of UNC-Chapel Hill, NC. Or better even, ask Tim Horn. I read his review about this testing protocol in PRN Notebook.
This test is NOT a RNA-PCR test. In fact, it does not use PCR technology at all. Its a NAT test that uses Transcription-Mediated Amplification (TMA), a method used exclusively by the San Diego based Gen Probe Inc (the manufacturer of the test). I agree with RapidRod though that this test only tests for HIV-1. In fact there is no NAT assay that checks for both HIV-1 and HIV-2 given the amplification process involved and the gentetic makeup difference between the two. So yes, precisely for this reason, a confirmatrory antibody test may be necessary.
The low-risk/high-risk protocol you mentioned does not apply to any testing scenario. It is used as a "guideline" only for administering PEP at a physician's discretion. There again, some leading HIV Physicians like Dr.Joel Gallant of Johns Hopkins suggest that any "receptive" sexual activity is riskier than any "insertive" sexual activity.
http://qa.hopkins-aids.org/forum/view_question.html?section_id=61&category_id=90&id=103636 (http://qa.hopkins-aids.org/forum/view_question.html?section_id=61&category_id=90&id=103636)
In case you are curious, my knowledge about blood-borne pathogens is not restricted to "googling". I hold a MS degree in Life Sciences from the University of Notre Dame and am currently working towards my PhD. I am convinced that HIV will be my area of research towards my dissertation.
-
checking,
You came into this thread to "correct" information that wasn't wrong to begin with. The test being discussed was PCR DNA testing. All this kind of thing does is muddy the issue. That was my main issue with you. And like it or not, there are studies that show oral is extremely low risk and nothing to start using fancy testing over. This person doesn't even really need to test over this specific incident.
Please do not hijack this thread further. If you want to discuss this issue more, please post in your own original thread. Anything further you post here will be moved to your own thread.
And by the way, if you know as much as you claim to, then why did you have to come here with your out of control husband? You have very little credibility here.
Ann
-
Thank you all very much for your comments....I really appreciate them. So I guess bottom line is I should just wait until about 6 weeks and test with western blot for hiv or not? With all that I have heard and read...don't know if I should be concerned about it? I am going to test for the std's now though. This website is so great, thank you all so much for keeping up date!!
Brian
-
Brian, you'll test with an ELISA test first. If it would happen to give a positive result, then a Western Blot or an equivalent would be given.
-
Brian,
If you want to understand more about hiv testing, check out the link to the Testing Lesson found in the Welcome Thread (http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=220.0). While you're there, have a look at the Transmission Lesson too, and you might also like to read through the condom and lube links in my signature line.
And don't sweat the hiv test - if you do decide to test over this incident. As long as you haven't been having any unprotected anal or vaginal intercourse, you can expect a negative result.
Ann
-
I just wanted to thank Ann, Andy, and Rod for all of your advice. Just wanted to let you my status. I got tested for std's and they came back neg which is a good thing. I also took the dna hiv test and that also came back neg. Due to what I have read and heard from the experts (you all), I think I may just put this behind me and not do any further testing. Any thoughts? This website is indeed a very good thing, thanks for all your efforts.
-
One last qestion. Took another dna pcr @ the 5 week and it was neg. Just took a hiv antibody test @ the 12 week point and it came back neg. Is that good enough to move on and leave this behind me? Thanks for all your help.
-
Yes..
-
Absolutely. Move on.