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Comments on this case
Hi,
first of all I'd like to congratulate you on the high quality of this site. Opposite to most places it doesn't try to follow guidelines but rather focuses on scientific results (published?).
I am a man living in Sweden an almost 12 weeks ago I had unprotected sex with a female (once). A couple of weeks after I was diagnosed with chlamydia. I was informed of this 8 1/2 weeks after the exposure. On the same day I started taking doxycycline and started feeling a mild fever and a flu-like feeling. A couple of days after (9 weeks mark) I did a HIV blood test that came negative. Meanwhile, I started reading about HIV symptoms and checking up my body for them. Never had rashes but felt stiffness on my neck and possibly swollen lymph nodes since week 10. Now I'm at week 11 1/2 and still feel the flu-like symptoms, the mild fever and the swollen lymph nodes and some "funny" feeling in my groin.
Now, from the research I've done on this site, chances of getting infected from vaginal intercourse are low (1:1000). Since she had chlamydia this might raise to 1:500 ( i was tested negative before) in case she had HIV, of course. What are odds of someone having chlamydia also has HIV?
Now, the symptoms: one should never rely on symptoms for assessing HIV and my symptoms appear on the same day I found out I had chlamydia. The throat symptoms appear after I started poking it. The fever might not even reach 38C (100F) (I've started taking my temperature since 24 hours ago, and the warm feeling on my head that I thought to be fever reached a maximum of 37.3C (99F)). The "funny" feeling most probably is a product of my imagination. Would these "symptoms" be just an anxiety result. And when a patient thinks it is anxiety-driven sicknesses it most probably is, right?
Chances of having HIV symptoms after 8 weeks are extremely low. One more thing: does seroconversion always comes after the HIV symptoms?
(More details on my post in the other forum)
Thanks in advance!
first of all I'd like to congratulate you on the high quality of this site. Opposite to most places it doesn't try to follow guidelines but rather focuses on scientific results (published?).
I am a man living in Sweden an almost 12 weeks ago I had unprotected sex with a female (once). A couple of weeks after I was diagnosed with chlamydia. I was informed of this 8 1/2 weeks after the exposure. On the same day I started taking doxycycline and started feeling a mild fever and a flu-like feeling. A couple of days after (9 weeks mark) I did a HIV blood test that came negative. Meanwhile, I started reading about HIV symptoms and checking up my body for them. Never had rashes but felt stiffness on my neck and possibly swollen lymph nodes since week 10. Now I'm at week 11 1/2 and still feel the flu-like symptoms, the mild fever and the swollen lymph nodes and some "funny" feeling in my groin.
Now, from the research I've done on this site, chances of getting infected from vaginal intercourse are low (1:1000). Since she had chlamydia this might raise to 1:500 ( i was tested negative before) in case she had HIV, of course. What are odds of someone having chlamydia also has HIV?
Now, the symptoms: one should never rely on symptoms for assessing HIV and my symptoms appear on the same day I found out I had chlamydia. The throat symptoms appear after I started poking it. The fever might not even reach 38C (100F) (I've started taking my temperature since 24 hours ago, and the warm feeling on my head that I thought to be fever reached a maximum of 37.3C (99F)). The "funny" feeling most probably is a product of my imagination. Would these "symptoms" be just an anxiety result. And when a patient thinks it is anxiety-driven sicknesses it most probably is, right?
Chances of having HIV symptoms after 8 weeks are extremely low. One more thing: does seroconversion always comes after the HIV symptoms?
(More details on my post in the other forum)
Thanks in advance!
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
With apology, a thoughtful response would require far more time than appropriate for me to spend. Further, the forum is not intended for professional level discussions. I will just say that the issues you raise are valid, although they apply equally to the more extensive research on HIV/STD interactions other than chlamydia.
Hi again,
maybe I didn't formulate my question properly. This wasn't about me, but rather an educational question, since my "HIV event" has ended. As a leading researcher on this area I was hoping you'd elucidate me on this matter.
What I mean is that i browsed through several research papers i found (don't remember of any lancet or nature, but within journals with high impact factor) and researchers reported a higher number of HIV cases for people with chlamydia as compared to people without. These values are even statistically different. But, social factors are not taken into account, like different sexual behaviors of people without chlamydia as compared with the ones with (like condom usage). Is there anything like this? Or any designed study were blanks were used? Like a study with people with damaged genital epithelial layer but without chlamydia? Or any other study? I am not saying that having chlamydia doesn't increase chance of HIV transmission. Just that the only conclusion one can take from the papers I've read is not that chlamydia increases HIV transmission, but rather that people with chlamydia have a higher chance of also having HIV.
I understand that I'm now shifting a bit the subject, but it would be great if you could enlighten me on that. It's also perfect if you could just send me a reference of a paper on that since I spent some days on this a month ago and never found out anything.
Hope you'll have a nice weekend and thank you for your help!
Best Regards!
maybe I didn't formulate my question properly. This wasn't about me, but rather an educational question, since my "HIV event" has ended. As a leading researcher on this area I was hoping you'd elucidate me on this matter.
What I mean is that i browsed through several research papers i found (don't remember of any lancet or nature, but within journals with high impact factor) and researchers reported a higher number of HIV cases for people with chlamydia as compared to people without. These values are even statistically different. But, social factors are not taken into account, like different sexual behaviors of people without chlamydia as compared with the ones with (like condom usage). Is there anything like this? Or any designed study were blanks were used? Like a study with people with damaged genital epithelial layer but without chlamydia? Or any other study? I am not saying that having chlamydia doesn't increase chance of HIV transmission. Just that the only conclusion one can take from the papers I've read is not that chlamydia increases HIV transmission, but rather that people with chlamydia have a higher chance of also having HIV.
I understand that I'm now shifting a bit the subject, but it would be great if you could enlighten me on that. It's also perfect if you could just send me a reference of a paper on that since I spent some days on this a month ago and never found out anything.
Hope you'll have a nice weekend and thank you for your help!
Best Regards!
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Chlamydia increases the chance of HIV transmission. But the negative HIV test results show it didn't happen in your case.
Aside from that, I have no further comment.
Aside from that, I have no further comment.
Hi again,
with no surprises my 13 weeks hiv test was negative and I'd like to have some comments on this, but first one question just for curiosity sake:
- do you know, in percent how much of the people infected with chlamydia also have HIV?
Is this value statistically higher than the one found for the general population?
I was making a fast search in pubmed over the publications on this topic, and I found that in one paper there was no connection between chlamydia and hiv whereas other find a higher number of hiv cases for people with hiv. And I found myself wondering: Don't people with chlamydia have sexual behaviours that just by themselves promote higher risk of aquiring hiv? On the other hand, if one has hiv, doesn't your immune system changes in such a way that it is easier to get infected with chlamydia (even though the infection rates for it are already relatively high)? Due to both of this, is there a chance that the assumption that having chlamydia causes substantial damage to the genital epithelial layer which may facilitate HIV infection is actually inaccurate?
Well, I know nothing on this subject and this was just the result of a fast browsing on the articles i saw a while ago, and it would be nice to get comments from you on this since you have a much better knowledge of the literature.
My other comment is from my internet research on hiv testing...that fortunately stopped a couple of weeks ago and its meant for everyone (Wonder if you agree with these ideas). I bet that this is nothing new, but I'd like to share with all of you that are having anxiety over this right now.
Some weeks ago I had fever, sore throat, enlarged lymph nodes on my neck and funny feeling on my groin. All of this after I was tested positive for chlamydia. If you go to the other forum you'll see that one user even said that this was for real. Back than I'd done the 9 weeks test and realized that chances of having HIV were extremely small.
So I'd like to give a new diagnosis based on my research:
If you have had a high risk exposure (check messages in this forum for definition) and had HIV symptoms that appeared before you knew about them, maybe you should get tested...symptoms are not reliable at all for knowing status and chances are still low you have it!
If you have had a low risk exposure and start to have symptoms AFTER you read which are the ones for HIV, you almost surely do not have it.
and don't search the internet! listen to the MDs here! They know what they are talking about!
Thank you for the help you give on this great site, and you can count that you'll not see me again in this HIV prevention forum.
with no surprises my 13 weeks hiv test was negative and I'd like to have some comments on this, but first one question just for curiosity sake:
- do you know, in percent how much of the people infected with chlamydia also have HIV?
Is this value statistically higher than the one found for the general population?
I was making a fast search in pubmed over the publications on this topic, and I found that in one paper there was no connection between chlamydia and hiv whereas other find a higher number of hiv cases for people with hiv. And I found myself wondering: Don't people with chlamydia have sexual behaviours that just by themselves promote higher risk of aquiring hiv? On the other hand, if one has hiv, doesn't your immune system changes in such a way that it is easier to get infected with chlamydia (even though the infection rates for it are already relatively high)? Due to both of this, is there a chance that the assumption that having chlamydia causes substantial damage to the genital epithelial layer which may facilitate HIV infection is actually inaccurate?
Well, I know nothing on this subject and this was just the result of a fast browsing on the articles i saw a while ago, and it would be nice to get comments from you on this since you have a much better knowledge of the literature.
My other comment is from my internet research on hiv testing...that fortunately stopped a couple of weeks ago and its meant for everyone (Wonder if you agree with these ideas). I bet that this is nothing new, but I'd like to share with all of you that are having anxiety over this right now.
Some weeks ago I had fever, sore throat, enlarged lymph nodes on my neck and funny feeling on my groin. All of this after I was tested positive for chlamydia. If you go to the other forum you'll see that one user even said that this was for real. Back than I'd done the 9 weeks test and realized that chances of having HIV were extremely small.
So I'd like to give a new diagnosis based on my research:
If you have had a high risk exposure (check messages in this forum for definition) and had HIV symptoms that appeared before you knew about them, maybe you should get tested...symptoms are not reliable at all for knowing status and chances are still low you have it!
If you have had a low risk exposure and start to have symptoms AFTER you read which are the ones for HIV, you almost surely do not have it.
and don't search the internet! listen to the MDs here! They know what they are talking about!
Thank you for the help you give on this great site, and you can count that you'll not see me again in this HIV prevention forum.
Thanks for your prompt reply.
Since it doesn't cost anything I will just get tested again on monday (12 week mark) and in a week I'll come back with my result.
Again, congratulations for this site!
Best Regards!
Since it doesn't cost anything I will just get tested again on monday (12 week mark) and in a week I'll come back with my result.
Again, congratulations for this site!
Best Regards!
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
You have accurrately analyzed your own situation. The odds you caught HIV are irrelevant: the negative test shows you were not infected, since almost everybody with new HIV infection has a positive result by 9 weeks. Even though official advice often says testing should be done at 3 months, 6-8 weeks generally is sufficient with modern tests.
Symptoms always are completely irrelevant in assessing the possibility of new HIV infection. As you seem to know, the symptoms or ARS are no different than those of any number of benign viral infections and other conditions. And your symptoms don't sound much like ARS anyway.
Bottom line: You don't have HIV. Of course follow up with your doctor or clinic if your symptoms persist or you remain concerned.
Regards-- HHH, MD
Symptoms always are completely irrelevant in assessing the possibility of new HIV infection. As you seem to know, the symptoms or ARS are no different than those of any number of benign viral infections and other conditions. And your symptoms don't sound much like ARS anyway.
Bottom line: You don't have HIV. Of course follow up with your doctor or clinic if your symptoms persist or you remain concerned.
Regards-- HHH, MD
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