Anxiety and testing windows

[londonguy10000]

Dear Dr Hunter Hansfield,

Firstly I'd like to thank you for your continuing contribution to this forum, its a fantastic resource for anyone who's anxious or unsure about HIV and diagnosis.
I'm a 23 year old male from London in the UK. On the 17th of January, I had unprotected vaginal and oral (both giving and receiving) sex with a 20 year old white female. Six days after this, on the Wednesday, I started to feel a bit groggy, and on the Saturday, 9 days after this incident, I started to experience swollen glands in my neck, which I still have today, 5 days on. I also have had a midly sore throat in the middle of the night for the past couple of nights.
I'm well aware that the symptoms that present with ARS are so common especially this time of year with colds and flus around, that they're in no way a reliable way of assessing HIV status - the only real way is being tested - but I still have some worries about all this and a few questions too:

1. What is the usual window of onset of ARS symptoms? I feel like what I'm experiencing might be a little early to be an indication of this but I'm not sure.
2. Could my anxiety about HIV and the fact that I've been trawling the internet looking for signs and symptoms be the cause of my symptoms? I know stress can have a huge effect on people's health.
3. What's the best time to get the p24 test for most accurate results?
4. What risk is there that I could infect my partner through me receiving or giving oral sex? (I'll obviously be using condoms for vaginal sex between now and the time i get tested)
5. I know my behaviour was reckless and stupid, and I suppose I deserve the anxiety, but how risky does this encounter seem? The person in question has had a few partners and tested negative about a year ago but isn't an intravenous drug user or prostitute or anything like that - just a normal college student.

Thanks so much,

Worried Londoner

[negative_777]

test at 12weeks to move on

[hopeless4now]

If you want to talk to a doctor you have to go to the doctors forum. However, since you had a potential exposure my unprofessional and personal advice would be to have an antibody test 3 months after this event for conclusive results. Also, your symptoms came on a bit too early to be ARS related. Hope this helps some.