Help plz

[ScaredTeen17]

hello. i am glad i found this site because my anxiety is killing me. i am 17 years old and very unimformed about HIV. i am a virgin and im sure i would be responsible enough to use a condom. anyway thats not wat im worried about. i work at my dads air conditioning place and i help him fix the air conditioners and we are always cutting our hands up and we never really put bandages on them, we just stop the bleeding. anyway i got numerous cuts the other day and im just walking around touching and handling things. my worry is that someone with HIV or something had been handling those things and possibly bled our put some other of their body fluids on it and while im handling it there blood and what not could have gotten in my cuts. am i at risk?

just the other day i came in from work and whiped my hands off on a towel and continued to use that towel throughout the day to whipe my hands off. anyway, not thinking i used that very towel to dry myself off with after i got out of the shower. my worry is that with all that stuff i whiped on it could some of it have been someone elses blood and when i was rubbing my eyes and private parts could it have infected me?

i know this stuff is far out but like i said im very unimformed.

[Ann]

teen,

Hiv is a very fragile virus and quickly becomes damaged and unable to infect once it is outside the human body. It is not transmitted via environmental surfaces.

Along with reading the Welcome Thread and clicking on the Transmission Lesson link, here's what you need to know to avoid hiv infection.

You need to be using condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, every time, no exceptions until such time as you are in a securely monogamous relationship where you have both tested for ALL sexually transmitted infections together. To agree to have unprotected intercourse is to consent to the possibility of being infected with an STI. Sex with a condom lasts only a matter of minutes, but hiv is forever.

Have a look through all three condom and lube links in my signature line so you can use condoms with confidence.

Once you become sexually active, you should be having a full sexual health care check-up, including but not limited to hiv testing, at least once a year and more often if unprotected intercourse occurs. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS NOW, not until you start having intercourse.

When you DO become sexually active, 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.

You have NOT had a risk for infection in anything you bring to us.

If you ever inject recreational drugs, do NOT share needles or any other injecting equipment. Use condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, correctly and consistently, and you will avoid hiv infection. It really is that simple!

Ann

[ScaredTeen17]

yesterday i was eating some food and i bit the inside of my lip real bad and it tore the skin up and caused me to blleed and after i got done bleeding i sharded a spoon with someone. does that put me or them at risk?

[Matty the Damned]

No Scared, that isn't a risk for HIV transmission. Please do as Ann suggested and read our Welcome Thread and follow the links to our Lessons to learn more about how HIV is and is not transmitted.

MtD

[Ann]

Scared,

I'm hiv positive and I share eating utensils with people all the time, in total confidence that I am not putting them at risk for hiv infection.

If hiv transmission were that easy to achieve, the whole world would be positive by now.

Get reading that transmission lesson. You will not be permitted to use this forum to ask these kind of basic questions, questions that can be answered by doing some reading in lessons we've provided for you.

Ann

[ScaredTeen17]

hello, i live in area where meth is a huge problem. most of the users use needles to get high, i walk along the highway and see syringes on the side of the highway all the time. anyway i was riding my four wheeler on the side of the road where i have seen syringes b4 and i was wearing sandles. anyway i felt a stick like between my toes, i didnt think anything of it until i got home. is it possible a needle was sticking up from the ground and stuck me between my toes or i ran over one and it shot it up. plz im real scared thanx.

[RapidRod]

Did you do as you were told and read the lessons on transmission?

[Andy Velez]

This is all in the totally meaningless domain of what ifs. You haven't had a risk. You're just jerking yourself around about this and we aren't going for it. 

Read the transmission lesson and get real. Really.

[ScaredTeen17]

yes i read the welcome thread, unprotected sex leads to hiv as well as needle stick injuries and i had a possible needle stick injury. yall dont even recomend a test in 3 months, why? im not sure but i was possibly stuck by a needle and your not even recomending a test.

[ScaredTeen17]

i also have a visible hole that looks like a needle stick between my toes.

[Andy Velez]

We've been working in the epidemic for a long time, longer than your lifetime actually.

You're upset that we're not getting worked up. By your own acknowledgement you are a 17-year-old virgin who is illi-informed about HIV. And yet you want us to say you've had a risk when our experience tells us that no such thing has happened. The accident you had is not a risk for HIV transmission. Like so many others who don't know about HIV, you imagine it's around in all sorts of places in a viable, dangerous form.

HIV is a fragile virus. It requires certain very specific kinds of settings such as a vagina or an anus to be transmittable. Your fears are all about what ifs -- what if that was a needle and what if it came from someone who was HIV+ and what if and what if.

Listen, if you want to drive yourself crazy over this there's nothing we can do about that. You want to waste resources and  get tested. Go ahead and do that at 13 weeks, collect the inevitable negative result. It's totally unnecessary of course. You did not have a risk for HIV. If you hurt your foot you should discuss it with your doctor because you might, I said MIGHT, have a cause for some other sort of infection. But you can get all dramatic as much as you like. This is not an HIV situation. Really.   

[ScaredTeen17]

so ur saying that even if i was stuck by a needle between my toes used by an hiv positive person i wouldnt be infected?

[Andy Velez]

I am saying you have absolutely no real basis for thinking that's what happened. This is just your mind racing with scary stories that have no basis in reality, putting bits and pieces together to come up with a very far-fetched scenario.

[ScaredTeen17]

andy u will put my mind to rest on this issue if u just answer this quesyion yes or no. IF i was stuck between the toe by a needle used by and hiv positive person in the scenario i described would i be at risk, yes or no and why and i wont mention this again.

[anniebc]

If an HIV+ person had just taken a syringe full of blood from his veins and then instantly injected you between the toes with the said syringe then yes there is a good chance you would become infected...but this was not the case, you don't even know for sure you stood on a syringe, so why are you still going on about this?..and just for your information needles do not leave "holes" in the skin.

HIV is a very fragile virus and is rendered harmless within a couple of minutes once it's outside of the body, I think it's time for you to move on...testing is not warrented.

Jan