ARS symptoms - HIV infection

[toolate]

Hi,

my exposure was on the 22nd October 2013. Unfortunately the doctor at the hospital denied PEP when I asked for it.

I started to experience diarrhoe, pain in joints and muscles on day 7 after exposure. At this stage I wasn't sure if they might come from the antibiotics the told me to take to cure a possible Chlamydia/Gonorrhea infection. On day 8 my right lymph node near my grain was swollen and unbelievable painful. I decided to get a test (HIV PCR) on day 16 after exposure. Maybe too early but symptoms where hard to explain for me. I got a negative test result back.

On day  20 after exposure the left lymph node near my groin became swollen as well. Then two days the lymph nodes (axiliar) started to react with inflammation. A burning pain, swollen and painful. On day 25 after exposure I could sense it is less painful to touch my lymph nodes (groin and axiliar). Unfortunately the lymph nodes hollow of both kees were swollen and painful. Today is day28 after exposure and all lymph nodes are still slighty swollen. The most painful lymph nodes are still at the hollow of my knees. I can't stand longer than five minutes. In addition my legs are burning like hell. I can't sleep longer than six hours although I was used to sleep much longer. Nightsweats from time to time, some chills last week and a sore throat.

Surprisingly I had no fever yet. Good or bad sign? I don't know....

Well regarding my exposure- making a long story short: a prostitute with lots of red rash mostly on her breast and back and an ulcus or herpes simplex infection at their lip, unprotected oral sex while I am 90% sure I had an open herpes genitalis wound at my penis, 50% sure that we had protected anal & vaginal sex. Just to clarify: We had oral (unprotected) sex and  vaginal and anal sex (hopefully protected). I can't tell anymore if the condom were allright after I had some trouble inserting my penis into her anus.

Accordingly to my symptoms: What is your experience when it comes to lymph nodes swollen and painful all over the body. My HIV PCR result useless because I went to early for the test?

Any comment appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Joe K]

We do not comment on symptoms, because only testing can confirm your status.  Oral sex is not a risk for HIV infection as the mouth contains various proteins and enzymes that render HIV unable to infect.  Also, HIV is a very fragile virus and once it is exposed to air, it loses it's ability to infect.

Where you may have had a risk is concerning penetrative sex.  Condoms are designed to fail catastrophically, that is, if they fail, there is no doubt of failure.  If your condoms were intact, then you had protected sex.  However, you seem unsure if you had protected sex and in that instance the only way to know your status is to test.

Anyone who is sexually active 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.

If you aren't already having regular, routine check-ups, now is the time to start.  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.  Some of the other STDs can be present with no obvious symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to test.

The testing guidelines are to test at 6 weeks past your last possible exposure, with another test at 3 months to confirm the results.  Based on what you describe, you should wait for 6 weeks, past exposure to test.

Joe

[toolate]

Tomorrow I will get my first antibody test result. Unfortunately I am experiencing still some ARS symptoms. Especially painful legs and swollen lymph knodes at the back of my knee. Diagnostically there is no space for other things than HIV. I ruled out active Herpes viral infections and other STDs. I am pretty sure I will get a positive result back. I feel completly lost and not ready to face such a result. I don't know how I will act if the doctor will tell me my result. World doesn'T seem to notice if I am gone...

[Jeff G]

Tomorrow I will get my first antibody test result. Unfortunately I am experiencing still some ARS symptoms. Especially painful legs and swollen lymph knodes at the back of my knee. Diagnostically there is no space for other things than HIV. I ruled out active Herpes viral infections and other STDs. I am pretty sure I will get a positive result back. I feel completly lost and not ready to face such a result. I don't know how I will act if the doctor will tell me my result. World doesn'T seem to notice if I am gone...

The symptoms could be from many other things than HIV . Its not clear in your post if the vaginal or anal sex was unprotected or not , or you said you were not sure .

Since you are not sure you will need to test at 3 months post incident for a conclusive result ... and I might add that if you used condoms that didn't fail and you would have known if they did fail then you never had a risk anyway .

We hear from people everyday that have the same symptoms as you do and they all go on to test HIV negative ... there is a better chance then not you do not have HIV but the only way to know is to test and not by symptoms that could be from anything other than HIV . Best of luck .