Strange Exposure

[guilty_man]

I have a question regarding HIV transmission. Last night, I had an escort/dancer come to my hotel room. She basically gave me a massage and some light fondling and later peed on my chest (I was lying down) in the bathroom. Thats all. No kind of sex whatsoever. My concern is from an indirect incident. She took a few bites from a pizza that I had ordered and also a few swigs from a water bottle. I noticed (and she agreed) that she had a cold sore on her lips.

10 minutes after she left, I had the remaining pizza and also the remaining water from the bottle. Now I am so scared that if she had HIV, the virus may have come to the food and the water from her cold sore and then I have ingested it. I have read that HIV dies once exposed to the environment ONLY when the medium in which it is present dries. In my case, the water was in the bottle and was certainly not dry.

Do you think I have a risk and should I be concerned? I have a wife and a two little children at home.

[RapidRod]

You were never at risk and you don't contract HIV from eating after someone. Take the time to read the lessons on transmission. The link can be found in the "Welcome" thread.

[Andy Velez]

Neither urine nor any of the other details of your event last night would have put you at risk for HIV transmission.

Read our lesson about transmission. There's a link to it in the Welcome thread which opens this section. The real risks for HIV sexually are unprotected vaginal or anal intercourse. Everything else is pretty much in the theoretical category. And certainly nothing you did put you at risk for HIV.

Cheers,

[guilty_man]

Thanks for the responses.

Although, I must admit that given that a veteran like Andy Velez has determined my risk to be "theoretical", I am still concerned. Has there been any studies that talks about the length of time HIV survives outside the body? I am reading numbers from zero seconds to 8 hours to 16 days.

In some responses here, I have seen a few posters comment that once HIV is out of the body, it quickly becomes unable to infect. Now, "quickly" is a relative term. It can mean anything (hours/minutes/seconds). I am getting a feeling that people deliberately use terms like "quickly", "not long" as they are uncertain themselves. Thats why I wanted to know if there were any studies conducted on this aspect.

As mentioned in my first post, I have read some scientific journals that say that HIV stays alive and infectious as long as the medium in which it is IS NOT COMPLETELY DRY. So, I am deducing that the survival of HIV outside the body is a function of the time it takes for the fluid in which it exists to dry up. I guess thats why "universal precautions" in the medical field recommend wearing latex gloves while handling blood, semen etc.

Can some expert/doctor who posts here direct me to some study that talks about all this? Please don't make blanket statements as I have no way of knowing what the person's qualifications/expertise is in making that statement. Pardon me for my insistence, but I am a man of science and always like to read scientific validations.

So, to summarize my questions are:
1. Given that we don't know accurately how long HIV survives outside the body and that science validates that it survives as long as the fluid in which it is is NOT DRY, is there a possibilty that the water I drank could have had HIV (from the cold sore on the girl's lips) and the virus was alive as the medium was NOT DRY. I understand that the pizza was not a liquid medium and as such the risk may not be there. I am also not concerned too much about the urine as I read that its a sterile fluid and I am sure it did not get into my body or mucous membranes (it was on my outer skin only).

2. Do I need to be tested?

I request whoever answers to answer with validations.

Thanks in advance.

[Ann]

guilty,

You didn't have a risk. It's one am where I live and I'm too tired to dig studies up for you. I can tell you though that hiv is not transmitted via environmental surfaces such as you describe. If it was, we'd know about it by now and we'd let you know.

You certainly don't need to test over this situation.

Ann