Slightly freaking out.

[stressedout87]

Sorry for the long post/story. Just easier to give a full picture of everything in my opinion.

So here goes,

Around Nov 5th I had vaginal intercourse with a sex worker. During most of it it was protected until towards the end where I drunkenly decided to get rid of it. I was then penetrating for at most 10-15 seconds and did not ejaculate inside her.

Later that week I was treated for balanitis due to a small pimple/sore/redness on my penis. It turned out to not be balanitis and was genital herpes. I have come to grips with it already and am pretty much done stressing about that. The balanitis diagnoses led me to change both my shampoo and body wash in order to keep better hygiene because I was told that is the main cause of it.

Around the 28th of November I started showing a rash/dry skin type thing on my forearm(just below the elbow) and hands. I did not think anything of it and just contributed it to the weather and other factors.

When it did not go away I started to think it was an allergic reaction to the new shampoo and/or body wash so I have stopped using both of those, but nothing is really getting better.

This is when I decided to do more research on other STDs in order to see if the rash was a symptom for anything else, which of course led me the HIV/ARS. Now after reading about the different possibility of different symptoms I of course started to develop more and more them and then started to backtrack the last month to see if I had any others.

Now anytime I have a headache/muscle ache/gas/the slightly bit of "different" stool I pretty much freak out and then come read new posts on here for reassurance as I am no where near the window to be tested yet.

My current symptoms are almost exclusively a rash. At least the only one that persists. It is on my face/shoulders/shoulder blades/upper chest/side(just below my armpit)/upper arms/forearms/knee caps/and has went away on my pelvic area. It is slightly red in color everywhere but I also have tiny pimple like bumps on my shoulders/arms but nowhere else.

Occasionally, I will get a mild sore throat or headache that will last anywhere from 30 min to a couple hours, but never longer. I have not had a fever of any sort except during the first week or so after possible exposure.

Is it normal for the rash of someone with ARS to be better in the mornings and then get progressively worse as the day goes on?

Is it normal for it not to itch unless I start thinking about it/am taking a hotter shower than normal/or am sweating?

I apologize if this sounds confusing at all, I had it all worked out in my head how I wanted to explain everything, but I am not the best at expressing that through text.

Thanks in advance.

[Andy Velez]

The bottom line is that you had a low risk incident. HIV is significantly harder to transmit from female to male than the other way around. It was a short incident and only the one time. Odds are in your favor that you are going to test negative.

There is absolutely nothing which is in any way HIV specific about the symptoms you are concerned about. If any continue you should discuss them with your doctor.

You need to test at 13 weeks/3 months for a conclusive negative result.

And in the future stop playing around with your health. Use a condom everytime for vaginal and anal intercourse and you will be well protected against the sexual transmission of HIV. l