HIV Finger-Oral Exposure

[virulens]

What is the risk of exposure and infection with HIV in these situations- all with a hiv positiv female:

1. Petting ie fingering vagina of a girl with no signs of cuts on hands, and getting lubrication on the finger by inserting it now and then into my mouth with risk of fluids from the vagina comming in contact with my mouth from my finger? And the mouth might be a bit sore from eating strong and spicy food or candy(sugar sweets).

2. Kissing with sores in the mouth from eating candy - if you eat a lot of sour candy(sugar sweets) you can get cuts and bleedings from the mouth. The female partner has no visible cuts and seems to have a good mouth hygiene.

3. Does rinsing the mouth afterwards(10-15min) - with a mouthwash ( like a cool mint strong one like Listerine) - which then caused some small bleeding from soares I got from eating candy/sweets alter the risk ?

I'm most worried that HIV might have been comming into my mouth from my fingers that I inserted into her vagina and then into my mouth to get lubrication on them...and the fingering was all the way into the vagina...and I put my fingers in my mouth to get more lubrication on them...I did this like 3 times...and the last time her vagina was really wet, but still for some reason I put my fingers in my mouth.

I rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and brushed it afterwards and then saw some blood which came out in my spit after the brushing and risning....I know many say risk with Oral sex is low, but should I think that this doesn't matter ? And not get tested, and then perhaps put a future mate at risk ?  have been very worried about this and have to wait a "long time" until I can take a test since this just happend. I always use condom on my penis, so this episode has been very spooky to me as the girl told me she was hiv positiv while I used my fingers on her...

[RapidRod]

Take the time and go to the "Welcome" thread and follow and read the links to transmission. You didn't have a risk.

[tigger2376]

What this girl did was unfair, in my opinion. whilst its hard, I feel its only right to tell potential sexual partners my status.
You have no risk luckily, as Rods sterling advice will show you.
Keep using the condoms
x

[Ann]

Vir,

Kissing, no matter what sort of spin you want to put on it, is NOT a risk for hiv infection. Going down on a woman is also not a risk for hiv infection, and neither is putting fingers with vaginal fluids on them in your mouth.

You need to be using condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, every time, no exceptions until such time as you are in a securely monogamous relationship where you have both tested for ALL STIs together. To agree to have unprotected intercourse is to consent to the possibility of being infected with a sexually transmitted infection. Sex with a condom lasts only a matter of minutes, but hiv is forever.

Have a look through the condom and lube links in my signature line so you can use condoms with confidence.

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.

Use condoms consistently and correctly and you will avoid hiv infection. It really is that simple!

Ann

[virulens]

Thank you RapidRod, tigger2376 and Ann for your answers. It's a great comfort that you believe my risk to be so low and perhaps 0. But would you say so low that I don't need any testing at all and should just forget about this?

I might be unrational when I got so scared by this, but the shock when she told me she was hiv+ in the middle of the intimate activity I described almost gave me a black-out...I swear I could feel my heart stop for some seconds...and as you can imagine the activities did not continue.

I completly agree that informing about the hiv status should be done before you start getting intimate and kissing and such...I think we are all more rational then and will not get so scared for the potential risk we might have been exposed to without knowing...even if it is almost no risk with kissing...and then perhaps could have had a good time together...but i guess people are different and hard to moralize...

Like a follow up question...don't want to sound too nervous or something....but out of curiosity...do any of you know if there had been hiv comming into the mouth (like even in small amounts) and then 10-15 minutes or so u brush or do something with the mouth that cause a bleeding in the mouth - will it make the hiv already in the mouth more likely to infect me ? Or are these bleedings only relevant before the exposure to the hiv in the mouth - even if the risk for bleeding exposre orally seems to be regarded as very low risk ? It's still not really safe like if you were doing this often in a relationship with someone who had hiv and you did not have it ? I'm a bit confused on this...

(sorry for my spelling as english is not my native language)

Hug,

Virulens

[Ann]

It's a great comfort that you believe my risk to be so low and perhaps 0.

Vir,

We did NOT say your risk was low, we said you had NO RISK. ZERO. NONE. Nothing you did with this woman put you at risk for hiv infection.

Saliva contains over a dozen different proteins and enzymes that damage hiv and render it unable to infect. It doesn't matter that you brushed your teeth afterwards.

You need to treat anyone you have intimate relations with as though they have hiv. Not everyone who is hiv positive is aware they are infected. As long as you make sure you are using condoms when you have anal or vaginal intercourse, you will be fine. Please read my earlier post to you again.

Not only do I know these things because I have studied the facts surrounding hiv transmission, I also know because I live it. I am hiv positive and my long term partner of eight years is hiv negative. We have done everything you describe here and he is still hiv negative. We use condoms for intercourse and I am confident he will stay hiv negative.

You did NOT have a risk.

Ann

[virulens]

Thank you for your replies - since it seem you all have much experience with hiv and when you conclude I was never at risk from this behaviour with a hiv+ woman my bad thoughts regarding this experience has been removed.

I think much confusion about this is from what I read on our local health providers pages for HIV protection where they say that all body fluids represent a threat for hiv infection - including spit and vaginal fluids. I understand some say that kissing and licking a vagina and getting vagina fluids in the mouth represents a theoretical risk only, but this theory must be pretty bad then ? Any thoughts on why many Centers for Disease Control put vaginal fluids and salvia/spit on the list of infection mediums if it doesn't represent a real risk ? Just out of curiousity...

[RapidRod]

No, saliva nor spit are not infectious.

[virulens]

In theory some claim saliva to be infectious, but in practise it show that the amount of saliva required to infect is around 20 liters - or such a huge amount that for all practical purposes it will not represent an infectin route.

May thoughts came around these two definitions/names used to label risks - documented risk and theoretical risk - and the questions I ended up with in my mind was that some CDCs seem to want people to go for the theoretical risk reducing behaviour and not just follow the documented one. This seems logical since we probably don't know the full route of transmission yet, and perhaps never will in all details, but  the vast majority of transmissions 99.9+% follow the known route.

Like when kissing is the example - all experts say kissing is no danger, but still there is one possibly documented case of lesbian kissing with very bad mouth hygiene which resulted in hiv transmission. This could imply that the general risk of kissing if you are unaware of your or your partners mouth hygiene is not 0, but a number very close to 0 - like 1/millions.

In all this confuse about hiv infection and body fluids with possible virus infections I wish the information was better and labeled with a number to the risk  - and then you could compare the low number for most activities like kissing and fingering with the chance of being hit with f ex lightning...something most people don't worry about !

[RapidRod]

Saliva, Tears, and Sweat

HIV has been found in saliva and tears in very low quantities from some AIDS patients. It is important to understand that finding a small amount of HIV in a body fluid does not necessarily mean that HIV can be transmitted by that body fluid. HIV has not been recovered from the sweat of HIV-infected persons. Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of HIV.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/transmission.htm

[virulens]

Yupp, I just read that one RapidRod, and it contains some wording which illustrates what I tried to point out in the previous post - quote from the link from cdc listed by RapidRod:

"Casual contact through closed-mouth or "social" kissing is not a risk for transmission of HIV. Because of the potential for contact with blood during "French" or open-mouth kissing, CDC recommends against engaging in this activity with a person known to be infected. "

CDC recommends against French/Open mouth kissing with a known HIV+ person.

[RapidRod]

You only have to worry about open mouth kissing if a lot of blood is involved. Saliva has inhibiting factor that prevents the spread of HIV. If you have a some amount blood the saliva will inhibit it. Do you know of anyone that would kiss another person with that much blood in their mouth? Were not talking a little red ting sputum.

[411]

CDC recommends against French/Open mouth kissing with a known HIV+ person

Try telling that to all the people in positive negative relationships. You've had no risk whatsoever. Rather than being spooked out by your experience you should be calling that girl up and asking her out again.

She obviously knows more about protecting your health than you do and went on a ledge informing you she was positive. Hell, she could have kept quite and had protected intercourse and not placed you at any risk.

From your multiple posts over this I bet that you called it a night right then, leaving her to wonder and question this whole disclosure thing.
Go read the lessons section and bury some misconceptions. Then, if you liked the gal and enjoyed her company, go buy her some flowers.