oral- health anxiety

[Dobbs7]

Hey all

around three weeks ago I engaged in receptive oral sex with a HIV positive guy for around 10-20 seconds. unsure whether or not there was pre-cum but he did it not ejaculate in my mouth. the guy found out he was positive around 2 years ago, not sure what implications that has in terms of infectiousness. My oral hygiene is generally fine.

Around a week later I developed a sore throat. in the past two days have slight fever/ headaches and feel nauseous. Had a bit of a cough but it isn't dry, more phlegmy and in-line with a cold. also sneezing a lot which makes  it feel more like a common cold.

Treated for anxiety with medication and worry about this isn't consuming me (i'm able to work etc) but have a tendancy toward worst-case-scenario type thinking so I am struggling a bit. I've had a bit of a look at risk information, seen that PEP would not have been considered in the UK in my case, which I guess is reassuring. It seems the only evidence of people seroconverting from purely oral sex is rare and not often replicated. But the nature of anxiety is that these things can be discounted sometimes in favour of more skewed anxious thoughts. help appreciated :-/ thanks guys x

[Dobbs7]

should have mentioned-I intend to test at 2 months (reassurance) and then 3 months (peace of mind). Recently tested for clamadhyia and gonnoreah and tested negative.

[Jeff G]

You never had a risk for HIV in your situation . There are dozens of proteins and enzymes in your saliva that render HIV unable to infect .

There have been no fewer than three separate serodiscordant couples studies (where one person is HIV positive, the other negative.) These couples were tracked for three. five and ten years. The couples used condoms for penetrative vaginal and anal sex, but NO BARRIER at all for oral sex. Any kind of oral sex.

These studies yielded NO infections.

ALTHOUGH YOU DO NOT NEED HIV TESTING AT THIS TIME, anyone who is sexually active should be having a full sexual health care checkup, 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 checkups, 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!

[Dobbs7]

Tested after a month (full blood screen) - came back negative and conclusive. Cheers guys n gals, you do a great job here xxx

[Andy Velez]

Dobbs, that's great about your negative result. Not an unexpected one here. But you need to know that if you ever have a for real risk for HIV, the only test you must have is an HIV-specific one, not any other kind of blood test.