Hi I am panicing. I think I might have contracted HIV but there is so much information on the internet and misinformation, it's just giving me so much anxiety, I am so scared. I am a 24 year old heterosexual female and went through an awful few months of drunken nights and promiscuity, which I regret with everything in me.
I may have been exposed to it sometime during a 5 month time span (August 2013-January 2014) during which I was going through a lot of hard times and was dealing with the worst heartbreak i've experienced and the loss of my father, which happened in October. I was drinking a lot and had many nights where I would blackout and wake up in bed with whichever guy I was out with that night not being able to recall the events of the previous night, and this was with guys I knew next to nothing about. I look back on it and wish I could punch myself right in the face because I have never been that type of girl and through all of the trauma I was experiencing at the time I just went nuts trying to find something to numb the pain, to make it all go away, to forget. It was stupid and I am so ashamed of myself, I wish I could go back and change it all but I can't.
I first began believing I may have contracted HIV when a rash showed up on my arms this past March (2013). I live in upstate NY so we get pretty brutal winters and it can get very cold, which it did in March. The rash almost seemed as if it was poison ivy or bites from bed bugs (I had just gotten back from a trip to Wisconsin). I was afraid I had gotten bed bugs from one of the planes I had taken on my trip but I wasn't sure. I knew it wasn't poison ivy because it was winter. I had gotten clothes from Korea prior to the development of this rash and one of the sweaters was damp when I received it and it smelled funny, for some reason I thought it would be okay to slip it on quickly just to see how it fit before washing it. I thought maybe the sweater caused the rash, but I wasn't sure. The rash was really really itchy, the itch was not enhanced at night, it was like little dots on my forearms. it ended up lasting about 2-3 weeks and then finally it went away after repeatedly using hydrocortisone cream.
For demographic and risk purposes, the guys were all Caucasian besides one guy from Turkey, all around 20 years of age, did not use injectable drugs (that I know of, cannot be positive), and were heterosexual (that I know of, unless they had one crazy drunken night where the had sex with another guy, which would be a crazy scenario and I doubt any of them would have but you never really know).
I am not sure if they all used condoms. A lot of them did but I know for sure a few didn't but none ejaculated inside of me. I did take Plan B once or twice from fear of pre-ejaculate.
I have gone through the guys one by one to determine which I would consider could at all possibly be high risk for being HIV+ and have found only 2 that I think could be high risk based on how I perceived them and how little I know about them.
I have had no fever to my knowledge, have not lost weight (gained actually, which i'm sure was caused by stress eating and all the alcohol I had been consuming. I no longer drink besides the very occasional glass or two of wine), and no colds or flus really, maybe a few runny noses and short lived sore throats.
I have experienced some night sweats and chills (mostly around the same time as my rash, this no longer occurs besides the occasional chill), I have experienced extreme malaise most recently tonight and last night but this has happened a lot (overall sense of discomfort, a very strange uncomfortable feeling), occasional headaches, all over body aches (one solid day around the same time I got the rash, it was all over and I didn't know why but it hurt so badly and I couldn't move, I just laid in bed all day, the next day I felt fine and since then I have only experienced the very occasional minor body aches). I have also recently developed this area on the top of my nose that hurts when you put pressure on it, and its very red. The pain and redness is localized to the left tip of my nose (not sure if this means anything but figured I put it in here anyways).
My anxiety has been going nuts since March. I went through a brief period where I convinced myself I did not have it but since my anxiety has come back and worsened. I have been too scared to go get a test done and have contemplated getting an at home test but haven't done anything.
I know the only way to know is buy getting tested, which I plan to do but I am out of my home state and have no car. Unfortunately my mind is being far more active and causing me to break down in tears. Please help me!