HIV anxiey

[Sadaty]

Hello, Joggen,everybody, really appreciate your help in the anxiety group, and hope you could help me, I have been tested after a potential exposure to HIV 4 months and 3 weeks later,I was negative, however my extensive reading through the internet, knowing about the rare cases that take long time to seroconvert to the virus, and also knowing about that false negative ELISA testing-like the false positive one- can occur, keeps me in confined in a terrible mood, is it true that ELISA sensetitvity if 99.5% can miss 5 infection cases in 1000 people? and why is that disregarded?
Have a good day

[Sadaty]

Your wise words put some sense in me,thanks a lot ,may you be blessed :)

[Sadaty]

Thanks a lot for your kind reply, I never ever had felt like that before in the past! It`s that I`m getting to know an awesome Signifiant Other and feel terrible that I could lose him because of this, because i can`t see why wouldn`t I be one of those unlucky people, I also feel so frustrated about the fallibility of science! that some people could be labeled and diagnosed for HIV while they don`t have it and others could have it and infect others or get shocked at a significant moment, like marriage or pregnancy, thinking about all this can drive one mad... don`t you think? I think of it this way now-bear with me plz :)- false negative rate= 0.003>0.005 , while false positive WB = 0.9 ! so i`ll take the first down the road!  Crazy, huh?  

[cj29]

HIV anxiety is a common cause of people coming to this forum.  In my opinion, I do not know if anything can claim to be 100% effective but that seems pretty darn close and you said you had a negative result, which is great!  Be careful about what you read on the internet; while it can be a great tool, it can also feed your anxiety.  Furthermore, you can find anything and everything that justifies why you are scared no matter how far fetched the idea may seem.

Have you had anxiety issues in the past?  Instead of constantly worrying about this, why not channel the energy in talking to a counselor about it, if it has become a problem?  In my opinion, learning and gaining the knowledge about your anxiety can give you the tools to confront it and get some real long term relief from it in my opiinion.