I'm extremely worried and paranoid about Possibly having HIV.

[Rick1975]

Hello all. So to sum things up, I had a high risk exposure exactly 8 days ago (unprotected anal sex). Approximately 40 after the exposure, I woke up with my face feeling warmer than usual. I immediately panicked and started googling STD symptoms. As the days went by, my face stayed warmer than usual and sometimes it had a burning sensation. I began checking my oral temperature daily on the 2nd day of symptoms, and noticed my temperature was normal and has been since, ranging from 97.5 - 98.4 throughout the day. On the 4th day of "symptoms", I went to an urgent care clinic, and the doctor said its possible I may have HIV,along with a few other possible ailments. This sent me into an extreme panic (I'm married). I had blood drawn, and immediately after the doctor visit, I took an oraquick HIV test in my car. The results from oraquick were negative. Finally yesterday, my results from the blood test, HIV 1 & 2 assay, also came back negative. The doctor I spoke with on the phone said there is no signs of infection. I felt relieved. I should add that on the day of the doctor visit, I asked him that if I was 4 days into "seroconversion" at the time of the blood test, would the test find antibodies, and he said there is a very good chance that it will. Fast forward a bit and today is the 6th day of my "warm face" symptom and the 8th day after exposure, I've had no other symptoms besides having a warm face. I'd like to add that I've suffered from severe depression and anxiety before, but I don't recall my face ever feeling warm because of it, or maybe I just never noticed. I'd also like to add that when the doctor called the other day to inform me of my negative results, I felt all the face warmness go away, but then the next day, I began thinking about all of this and it came back.  Tomorrow, I've scheduled myself an appointment to take the HIV RNA test at the 9 day mark. Will this test be conclusive if it comes back negative? I'm paranoid here. Thankfully my wife and I only have sex a few times a year, so ensuring she won't get infected by my stupid choice is not a problem. I just need some help here please. Thank you to anybody who answers me.

[Chima7]

RNA tests are not used for diagnosing HIV because they frequently come up with false positives. Think about how devastated you'd feel if you ended up getting a false positive because you took the wrong test and at the wrong time? The experts who used to post here on MedHelp always told people to not waste their time nor money on PCR tests because they're pretty much worthless. Especially when that test is taken only 9 days after exposure, which is not long enough to wait.

If you want far better conclusion and piece of mind about whether you're infected then you need to take a 4th gen duo test at 28 days. Yea I know you don't want to wait that long but that's the earliest possible time frame you can take an HIV test and have any degree of certainty with the results. Unfortunately that's your only option at this time.

[NikLobat]

Hello. Symptoms after 8 days aren't evidence of ARS.
But you had very risky encounter.
Your doctor told you HIV test on 12th day is good indication that you have not infected? Was the test HIV RNA?
I think you should follow up your doctor.