please help can't cope

[donn]

please help I am so worried.

3 weeks ago I had insertive vaginal sex with a woman of unknown status.  we used a condom however this broke completely during intercourse and I failed to notice until I withdrew. 

6 days after the event I developed a temperature which lasted for 3 days before I seemingly felt better until the next day I woke with swollen glands which lasted for approx 1 day, during this time I had a slightly sore throat which turned out to be an ulcer near to my tonsil. this lasted for approx one week.  from the 10-14 day I experienced extreme tiredness and a complete loss of appetite. 

it is only now a couple of weeks later I considered the poss of HIV and did some reasearch now I notice I had nearly all the syptoms.  what are my chances of having contracted the virus? (I was trying to be responsible using condoms) do my symptoms sound like ARS?

Please help I am at my wits end now with worry and need some reassurance.

thank-you

[Andy Velez]

Don, despite all of your symptoms none of them are in any way HIV specific or suggestive to me of HIV infection.

The condom protected you until it broke, whenever that was during this incident. HIV is not an easy virus to transmit. It's significantly more difficult to transmit from female to male. Given this was a single incident and one in which you were protected for at least a part of the time, I would say the odds are in your favor against tranmission having occured.

Of course low risk is not the same as no risk, so the prudent thing is for you to get tested at 13 weeks and collect what I would expect will be a negative result.

If any of your symptoms persist you should discuss them with your doctor. By the way, neither the presence nor the absence of symptoms will ever tell you anything accurately about your HIV status. And certainly there's nothing in what you are reporting which is HIV specific.

Stay productively busy during the waiting period and it can pass far more easily than you may imagine at this moment.

Good luck with your test.

Cheers,

[donn]

thanks for your quick reply I do understand that symptoms can never diagnose hiv.  I know she had a throat infection during the incident so i could have just caught it and been fighting it off beofre it developed just the mouth ulcer that really wories me as are they not a bit more HIV specific?

[HIVworker]

The symptoms do not sound like ARS at all to me. They come on too early and at different times. The likelyhood you have HIV from this single incident is low. As you are sexually active, get a full STD test anyhow...and do so at 13 weeks. I am not concerned that anything you describe sounds like ARS and if that is your only exposure it is very unlikely that you have HIV.

R

[Ann]

donn,

Can I ask why you are using different usernames while posting to our forums? Thus far, you have also used donnst

Please realize that this kind of activity is disrespectful of other forum members, as well as our moderators. People spend a considerable amount of time helping others in these forums. Using multiple accounts is at the very least annoying, if not deceiving and disrespectful of others. It is also against our Terms of Membership which you agreed to when you became a member. This information is also contained within the Welcome Thread, which you should have read by now. So really, you have no excuse.

You must realize that the answers won't change, no matter how many names you post under.

I would appreciate a reply to this message, and I hope you will commit to using just one account - preferably your original one. If not, you will be banned from further access to the forums.

Ann