POZ Community Forums
HIV Prevention and Testing => Do I Have HIV? => Topic started by: Psmith on August 30, 2013, 08:33:02 pm
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I am a 21 year old male who engaged in unprotected anal and oral with another male of unknown status. Two weeks after the encounter I experienced classic ARS symptoms including fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, fever, swollen lymph nodes, stiff neck and diffuse joint pain.
I have been ordering my tests through stdtestexpress.com and requestatest.com. All my testing has been performed at Labcorp. 1) Are these legitimate ways to test? I saw where The Huffington Post featured an article on stdtestexpress.com.
See results below:
Negative with HIV 1/O/2 Abs-ICMA at 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 months. 2) Does this test look for all the subtypes of HIV?
Negative with HIV-1 DNA, PCR at 3 weeks and 5 months.
Negative HIV-1 RNA at 6 months
The ARS symptoms lasted for about a week, then subsided, but ever since the encounter I have been displaying oral and epidermal signs of HIV infection. I have experienced wide-spread and systemic form of what appears to be xerostomia, indicated by enlarged papillae all over and under my tongue, including the floor of my mouth. Also, I show hyperkeratinization, aconthosis, and fordyce granules on the mucosa of my gums and inner cheeks. It basically looks like hyperplastic candida. In addition, I have what appears to be a candida-like coating on my tongue due to the chronic dry mouth.
I also developed keratosis pilaris the backs of my upper arms simultaneously with the oral manifestations.
The oral and skin conditions both onset after I recovered from my ARS-like sickness, and have been present for over nine months. I have been reasonably healthy my entire life up until this point, so the sudden onset of these symptoms are clearly related and cause for legitimate alarm.
I have read that HIV commonly affects the salivary system, which would likely explain my oral and skin conditions.
4) From a clinical standpoint, have conclusively exhausted all my testing options? Would you recommend a different form of testing given my symptoms?
The CDC recommends that an individual keep testing as long as he/she is experiencing suspect symptoms. 5) In 2013, Are we at the point where one can definitively state that an individual is HIV negative regardless of the displayed symptoms? I read a case where an individual didn't seroconvert until four years after exposure.
At this point all I can say is, I engaged in high risk sexual activity, I subsequently acquired a viral infection, which has caused morphological changes to my body. These changes seemingly scream HIV infection. 6) How else can I explain these kinds of real long-term symptoms in an otherwise healthy 21 year old? 7) Could HPV or a form of herpes cause these kinds of symptoms?
Please advise me how I should proceed, I can't stop focusing on HIV.
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The only way to know your status is to test at the appropriate time , not from symptoms .
We do NOT discuss symptoms because they are not specific to HIV and could be caused by many more conditions other than HIV .
The appropriate window period for testing is 6 weeks past any possible exposure and again at 3 months to confirm the results . This is the cdc testing window period guideline as well .
Your negative HIV results you posted are conclusive and you do not have HIV .
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Could I please hear from Ann, Andy, and Jkinati?
I would appreciate more insight into my situation from the other moderators/administrators.
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Could I please hear from Ann, Andy, and Jkinati?
I would appreciate more insight into my situation from the other moderators/administrators.
Well, I am not entirely sure I have anything to add to Moderator Jeff's succinct assessment.
The CDC's recommendations regarding testing are all over the place, likely because they have the annoying habit of NOT retiring (deleting) obsolete information as new styandards emerge. Look hard enough on the site and you will find cautions against kissing (!) regarding HIV.
Thing is, the anecdotal story of someone who took four years to seroconvert is just that - an anecdote at a time when monitoring and testing were in their developmental stages.
You have exhaustively tested. The current standard for testing is three months - and you have to understand that the only reason the current standard is still three months is because, in some areas of the world (including rural areas in the US) older, cheaper tests are being used.
you used not only state of the art duo tests, but PCR tests as well (word of warning for the future- pcr tests can give false positives) - and you tested out WAAAAY beyond when you needed to.
The average time for seroconversion is 22 days. The emerging standard for definitive testing is six weeks (we still, because this is a global site, maintain the three month window).
You simply do not have HIV.
I know you connected all the dots between your symptoms and related HIV-centric situations, but you must realize that ARS symtoms are not specific to HIV. ARS is your body's initial immune response, and it varies from person to person, virus to virus.
Many of the symptoms you describe happen only when a person's immune system is almost destroyed from chronic, long term HIV infection. The oral and skin conditions? Usually years after infection.
Your testing? Conclusive.
While I understand the desire to research a condition that alarmed you, you have studied for a test you do not need to take. You do not have HIV. You do not have a rare unheard-of strain. You are not a scientific anomaly. You had unprotected sex, but you did not get HIV from it.
You do not have HIV. You simply do not.