POZ Community Forums
HIV Prevention and Testing => Do I Have HIV? => Topic started by: Trishta on December 01, 2006, 10:38:13 pm
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Hi,
Let me just describe what happened and maybe i can get some feedback as to weather i am being extremely paranoid or not.
About 5 years ago, i sort of gave my boyfriend oral sex and received oral sex as well. (That, and kissing was the extent of our intimacy) I say sort of because it lasted for less then a min and he did not ejaculate. I just sort of licked him abit (at the tip) and stuff. And this happened twice. Both lasting a minute or less.
And as i said, its been 5 years and i suddenly got worried after i read some article about how symptoms do not appear for more than 10 yrs.
He was 17 at that time and i dont know if he has Aids or not. I dont have any reason to suspect that he had it and yet im being all worried.
What are the chances that i could have aids?
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As close to zero as you can get.
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Even if he might have had aids?
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Even if he had aids.
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Thank you thank you thank you!
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Oh and im sorry to sound psycho..but if i haven had any other sexual contact since tt day..except for kissing..is there any reason for me to go get checked?
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nope
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hmm ok..my last qn! what if i had had a ulcer or something? though i dont remember if i did coz it was 5 yrs ago
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still nope
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well ok..but all this one word answers are not reassuring :(
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Well, would it make you feel better if I used 100 words? You weren't at risk. The only way you get HIV is from unprotected sex, sharing needles or significant blood exposure. If you could get it from kissing with minor mouth damage everyone would have it. Saliva (your and theirs) contains natural antiviral agents that inactivate HIV. That's why kissing isn't a method of transmission. How do we know? Because nobody has ever got it that way.
Is that better?
R
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Welll yes its abit better, but i wasnt refering to simply kissing alot..it was me giving him oral sex too..though it lasted for a short while n he did not ejaculate. the websites i read through said that chances of transmission exist if i had an ulcer or something (though i cant remember if i had one). So thats what i was referring to. Not the kissing
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Well, if you take what I said about the saliva and transfer it to this brief oral sex without ejaculation, you will realize you still didn't have a risk. Even if he came in your mouth with this mouth ulcer. That also occurs a lot. If it were that easy to get, then we would see more people who got HIV with minor mouth damage but no other risks. Truth is, this doesn't happen either. Strange as it might seem, I actually do consider what I am writing here. It's your life we are talking about and I don't take that lightly. I wouldn't say you were at no risk if you were.
R
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Thank you. I never meant to belittle your advice. i am just a very paranoid individual who obviously has issues that i need to deal with.
but your advice has calmed me down a great deal. I can now actually concentrate on studying for my exams.
Thank you once again
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Aha! exams. The true cause of anxiety. Often there are other things that make people worry about HIV (or cancer). It appears, from observation from it occuring a lot, that things that cause stress (exams, wedding, new baby, job etc) bring on irrational fears.
R
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Yeap true..and it was all those articles that have been coming out for World Aids Day.
Besides, i think i have a case of hypochondria. Before this, i was worried i had brain tumour. In retrospect, it seems funny, but it really is not when i am going through it..
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I am still kinda paranoid..i know i ought to be shot..but i keep looking at websites and they keep talking about possible risks during oral sex. Sigh... and also..it wasnt just one oral sex encounter...i think it was 2 or 3..with the same guy though
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Trisha you should be studying books and not websites.
If it makes you feel better, I work with concentrated HIV in the lab. Statistics show that my risk is high. When you use virus that is concentrated things become a little different. I don't get it on my hands, but I have to be aware of even the smallest drop. I worried about HIV when I was 15 and worried about blowjobs etc too. However, working with the virus has given me an appreciation of how you do get HIV and how you do not.
A lot of websites say oral sex is a risk and a lot of them are wrong. Be aware that websites are not all great resources. In my 3 years of working on this forum I have never seen anyone seroconvert after merely oral sex. This isn't why I say oral sex is not a risk, but it does back up that claim. To get infected via oral sex would require an amount of virus that you don't normally get exposed to in oral sex. Prior to ejaculation there is hardly any virus present and even if they did ejaculate the risk remains very low. The mouth (yours) contains antiviral compounds that inactivate viruses including HIV.
Understand that although HIV is a virus it is not easy to get. Most HIV particles are not able to complete their life cycle. They are both fragile and poorly made. So the chance that you got infected from 100 blow jobs without ejaculation are billions to one.
However, if you find yourself worrying then take a test. You are outside the window period and the results will be conclusive. Test if you must, but do so knowing it is a complete waste of resources and time and if this is your only exposure it will be negative.
Now go study!
Rich
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I feel quite stupid bugging you..but now im like 99.99% calm and ready to go back to my philo book. But before that one last ( i swear this will be the last) question. How true is the claim that chances increase with the presence of ulcers?
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Any break in the mucus membrane increases the risk. However, again as they did not ejaculate, the risk is almost nothing. The magnitude of the increase in risk is hard to quantify as it depends on how big the ulcer etc. However, you are still talking billions to one for your case...
R