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Symptoms, Risks, Tests, Stress and Paranoia with a pinch of Neuroticism.
25 Caucasian male. Software engineer by career, personal trainer (CSCS & CPT through NSCA) by hobby. ADHD on Vyvanse 50 mg.
11/20 - Met a guy.
11/21 - (Day 1) Possible exposure.
20 minutes of insertive and receptive unprotected oral sex without ejaculation - I don't recall any pre-***. I stopped after discovering I had a canker sore on my lower gum line that I hadn't noticed prior - especially when I was brushing my teeth getting ready to meet him. Despite the evening before and the hour and half of getting to know each other a bit more in person and questioning his status and past relationships, he informs me after the fact that he had a methamphetamine (non-injected) habit including a 5 day "run" at a notoriously dirty bath house in early July in which he blacked out. He had papers from one month (34 days) prior to our hookup claiming he was negative. He also informed me that he had oral sex two weeks prior to our "hookup" with a guy of unknown status but was not tested after his hookup. Panic.
11/22 - MORE PANIC
11/24 - Canker sore goes away.
12/04 - (14 days) Test #1 = Negative. No symptoms.
12/11 - (21 days) SUDDEN onslaught of bizarre symptoms:
Sore throat and enlarged/swollen localized parotid lymph node that was non-tender slightly rubbery on the right hand side of my neck. Additional malaise, extreme fatigue, muscle aches mainly in my neck, shoulders and lower back, lack of appetite, nausea, lack of smell, achy joints, slight non-papular rash around my neck down to my clavicle. No fever, no runny nose, no cough, no congestion, no post-nasal drip, no sneezing.
I stopped working out and training on 1/12 as part of my rest cycle (might as well do it during holidays) so this was very confusing and scary.
12/18 - (28 days EXP / 8 days SX) Test #2 = Negative.
12/18 - (28 days EXP / 8 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. Still no fever. Sore throat progresses and worsens.
12/26 - (36 days EXP / 16 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. Sore throat escalates and two canker sores appear on the arch near my tonsils.
12/30 - (40 days EXP / 20 days SX) Test # 3 = Negative.
12/30 - (40 days EXP / 20 days SX) ALL symptoms persist. Getting really worried. I make a doctors apt.
12/31 - (41 days EXP / 21 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. New symptom. Hands and only hands turn bright red, no swelling or itchiness. Notice this after a few drinks. Happy new year!
01/04 - (45 days EXP / 25 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. I visit the doctor. I explain symptoms, onset and duration but no details as to potential origin. He does examination and the first question he asks me is have I had an HIV test. I inform him of the last date (12/30) and result and a brief explanation of the incident. He orders a bunch of tests (Strep, CMP, Hepatology, Urinalysis, GBV-C, CT of soft neck tissue and sinuses with and without contrast, MRI of abdomen) and tells me (in this order) it could be: Lymphoma, Nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, Mononucleosis (no test ordered though), Hepatitis-G. At that point my my stomach is at my feet then he says 'or it could be Chronic maxillary sinusitis.' He then prescribes me Levaquin 500 mg and sends me on my way.
01/06 - (47 days EXP / 27 days SX / 3rd day RX) Most Symptoms persist. Lymph remains unchanged. Canker sores FIANLLY disappear. However muscle aches increase, general fatigue increases, decreased apetite and rash starts to fade.
01/08 - (49 days EXP / 29 days SX / 5th day RX) Same as above. Lymph STILL unchanged. Hands still turn bright red if I consume more than 3 beers.
Today makes the 7 week mark. I planned on getting tested again on week 8 and accepting the results as is; however, this mention of GBV-C (Hep-G) has me a little worried for two reasons:
1.) The possibility of it slowing down HIV progression.
2.) It is often found in co-infections of other viruses.
In everyone's honest and hopefully professional opinions what are the chances of this being HIV? What are the estimated chances that a 6 week negative result will be positive >= 8 weeks. Am I just worrying myself sick?
This whole waiting game really has me in a bit of a panic and the stress and anxiety have kept me up all night despite my increasing fatigue. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I really hope everything comes back and it turns out to be the worse sinus infection that doesn't feel like a sinus infection of my life.
Thank you everyone kindly and thank you doctors for your continued support, reassurance, wisdom, and knowledge base that you provide to the world.
11/20 - Met a guy.
11/21 - (Day 1) Possible exposure.
20 minutes of insertive and receptive unprotected oral sex without ejaculation - I don't recall any pre-***. I stopped after discovering I had a canker sore on my lower gum line that I hadn't noticed prior - especially when I was brushing my teeth getting ready to meet him. Despite the evening before and the hour and half of getting to know each other a bit more in person and questioning his status and past relationships, he informs me after the fact that he had a methamphetamine (non-injected) habit including a 5 day "run" at a notoriously dirty bath house in early July in which he blacked out. He had papers from one month (34 days) prior to our hookup claiming he was negative. He also informed me that he had oral sex two weeks prior to our "hookup" with a guy of unknown status but was not tested after his hookup. Panic.
11/22 - MORE PANIC
11/24 - Canker sore goes away.
12/04 - (14 days) Test #1 = Negative. No symptoms.
12/11 - (21 days) SUDDEN onslaught of bizarre symptoms:
Sore throat and enlarged/swollen localized parotid lymph node that was non-tender slightly rubbery on the right hand side of my neck. Additional malaise, extreme fatigue, muscle aches mainly in my neck, shoulders and lower back, lack of appetite, nausea, lack of smell, achy joints, slight non-papular rash around my neck down to my clavicle. No fever, no runny nose, no cough, no congestion, no post-nasal drip, no sneezing.
I stopped working out and training on 1/12 as part of my rest cycle (might as well do it during holidays) so this was very confusing and scary.
12/18 - (28 days EXP / 8 days SX) Test #2 = Negative.
12/18 - (28 days EXP / 8 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. Still no fever. Sore throat progresses and worsens.
12/26 - (36 days EXP / 16 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. Sore throat escalates and two canker sores appear on the arch near my tonsils.
12/30 - (40 days EXP / 20 days SX) Test # 3 = Negative.
12/30 - (40 days EXP / 20 days SX) ALL symptoms persist. Getting really worried. I make a doctors apt.
12/31 - (41 days EXP / 21 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. New symptom. Hands and only hands turn bright red, no swelling or itchiness. Notice this after a few drinks. Happy new year!
01/04 - (45 days EXP / 25 days SX) ALL Symptoms persist. I visit the doctor. I explain symptoms, onset and duration but no details as to potential origin. He does examination and the first question he asks me is have I had an HIV test. I inform him of the last date (12/30) and result and a brief explanation of the incident. He orders a bunch of tests (Strep, CMP, Hepatology, Urinalysis, GBV-C, CT of soft neck tissue and sinuses with and without contrast, MRI of abdomen) and tells me (in this order) it could be: Lymphoma, Nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, Mononucleosis (no test ordered though), Hepatitis-G. At that point my my stomach is at my feet then he says 'or it could be Chronic maxillary sinusitis.' He then prescribes me Levaquin 500 mg and sends me on my way.
01/06 - (47 days EXP / 27 days SX / 3rd day RX) Most Symptoms persist. Lymph remains unchanged. Canker sores FIANLLY disappear. However muscle aches increase, general fatigue increases, decreased apetite and rash starts to fade.
01/08 - (49 days EXP / 29 days SX / 5th day RX) Same as above. Lymph STILL unchanged. Hands still turn bright red if I consume more than 3 beers.
Today makes the 7 week mark. I planned on getting tested again on week 8 and accepting the results as is; however, this mention of GBV-C (Hep-G) has me a little worried for two reasons:
1.) The possibility of it slowing down HIV progression.
2.) It is often found in co-infections of other viruses.
In everyone's honest and hopefully professional opinions what are the chances of this being HIV? What are the estimated chances that a 6 week negative result will be positive >= 8 weeks. Am I just worrying myself sick?
This whole waiting game really has me in a bit of a panic and the stress and anxiety have kept me up all night despite my increasing fatigue. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I really hope everything comes back and it turns out to be the worse sinus infection that doesn't feel like a sinus infection of my life.
Thank you everyone kindly and thank you doctors for your continued support, reassurance, wisdom, and knowledge base that you provide to the world.
What background do you have in HIV? I've lived with this disease as long as you've been alive. So you are not talking to people on this forum that have no back ground in HIV, transmission and testing.
Thank you for your comments. I saw an ENT specialist. I do agree he did make me worry. That is why I am here seeking out other opinions and why I listed out my symptoms in exquisite detail so I don't have to waste my insurance limits and HSA on seeing another doctor at this point.
Yes, I am a highly anxious person as and I will admit that I have issues when it comes to that. I am working on it and do have a therapist for those issues. I was really hoping for a bit more reassurance for my thoughts opinions and worries and possibly some educational dialogue instead of unwavering opinions and misinterpretations.
While the CDC has to be careful with wording, nobody here has to? I mean no offense or disrespect by this but that statement was outrageous and rather irresponsible outlook coming from members of a web site who's objective is to offer medical information and advice. I am not looking for everyone to have 100% precision in their words, but as I state "no risk" and "extremely low risk" are two entirely different animals. As I said in my previous post, you are not held liable for the contents of this site or even your own words so ultimately what does it really matter to you? Heaven forbid anybody have personal accountability for their actions.
Yes, I am a highly anxious person as and I will admit that I have issues when it comes to that. I am working on it and do have a therapist for those issues. I was really hoping for a bit more reassurance for my thoughts opinions and worries and possibly some educational dialogue instead of unwavering opinions and misinterpretations.
While the CDC has to be careful with wording, nobody here has to? I mean no offense or disrespect by this but that statement was outrageous and rather irresponsible outlook coming from members of a web site who's objective is to offer medical information and advice. I am not looking for everyone to have 100% precision in their words, but as I state "no risk" and "extremely low risk" are two entirely different animals. As I said in my previous post, you are not held liable for the contents of this site or even your own words so ultimately what does it really matter to you? Heaven forbid anybody have personal accountability for their actions.
First off thank you for your responses and insight.
I am not trying to play a semantic game. I am a software engineer - a computer programmer - and as such my entire world revolves around semantics. It is in my nature to be as specific as possible and many times this can be detriment to myself. I think anyone would have gathered that from the overtly detailed post I made. I do agree though I think I just overwhelmed myself. However I disagree with your statement about inaccurate and meaningless statistics.
You are telling me to listen to the truth but state my statistics are both inaccurate and meaningless. Do you want citations of the aforementioned statistics in APA format? I am more than happy to cite references from reputable medical journals.
I will grant you the fact that the statistics from these sources could be inaccurate and many annotations of these statistics do say the same. It is this low degree of confidence in these data sets that makes me worry and hence why I actually find them to indeed have a great deal of meaning.
If doctors and clinicians, research scientists and analaysts cannot get these statistics down then how am I to trust that? If everyone says "no risk" because of these statistics are based on these studies then doesn't that also invalidate what you are saying to a certain degree? In fact, it does. For example... Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician in the 17th century was proclaimed as proving that the sun was the center of the universe because he could calculate to the minute the motion of the planets via mathematics involving complex spirals. While the math still works beautifully to this day and the data sets continue to work in his favor, ultimately, he was and is still wrong. If our understanding is based solely on his mathematics and statistics then he cannot be disputed and we would continue believing in a heliocentric universe; however observation, further study and questioning proved otherwise. So before you say my statistics are inaccurate and meaningless, take a good look at what you are saying and how you came up with your "so called truth" and realize that you, sir, may in fact may just be wrong - albeit not completely I'm sure; however the POSSIBILITY is there.
You are training to be a medical professional - a scientist - and as a scientist this should be something to take into consideration. I question everything and that is what led me down my path to become a scientist. I myself hold two Bachelors of Science, one in Computer Science and one the other in Chemistry with minors in Mathematics and Physics and I am only 25 years old. Certainly I am not retarded but I don't claim to know everything especially in the light of such ambiguity.
Ultimately, the point I was trying to get across was: yes, I understand that the risk is very, very, very low and my symptoms are probably indicative of some other ailment and that "no risk" and "extremely low risk" are fundamentally two different animals. Given the audience and the wide array intelligence levels on this forum I would hate to see someone think there is absolutely without a shadow of a doubt no risk involved in receptive oral sex. I would hate to see someone go out and suck off as many men as they can expecting nothing to come of it in terms of HIV. Could you live with yourself if you told a naive kid that there is no risk getting HIV through receptive oral and then come to find out this is the very method in which they did? I would be horribly devastated. Certainly you are not held liable for information and advice on this site.
I am not looking to start flame war or a battle over statistical models and I am certainly not completely uneducated on the transmission of HIV. I was indeed ignorant and hasty in my initial risk assessment; however additional research has since cleared my worries. I will; however, stand behind the ill-advised statement that receptive oral sex is "no risk."
Thank you all and I wish you all the best.
I am not trying to play a semantic game. I am a software engineer - a computer programmer - and as such my entire world revolves around semantics. It is in my nature to be as specific as possible and many times this can be detriment to myself. I think anyone would have gathered that from the overtly detailed post I made. I do agree though I think I just overwhelmed myself. However I disagree with your statement about inaccurate and meaningless statistics.
You are telling me to listen to the truth but state my statistics are both inaccurate and meaningless. Do you want citations of the aforementioned statistics in APA format? I am more than happy to cite references from reputable medical journals.
I will grant you the fact that the statistics from these sources could be inaccurate and many annotations of these statistics do say the same. It is this low degree of confidence in these data sets that makes me worry and hence why I actually find them to indeed have a great deal of meaning.
If doctors and clinicians, research scientists and analaysts cannot get these statistics down then how am I to trust that? If everyone says "no risk" because of these statistics are based on these studies then doesn't that also invalidate what you are saying to a certain degree? In fact, it does. For example... Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician in the 17th century was proclaimed as proving that the sun was the center of the universe because he could calculate to the minute the motion of the planets via mathematics involving complex spirals. While the math still works beautifully to this day and the data sets continue to work in his favor, ultimately, he was and is still wrong. If our understanding is based solely on his mathematics and statistics then he cannot be disputed and we would continue believing in a heliocentric universe; however observation, further study and questioning proved otherwise. So before you say my statistics are inaccurate and meaningless, take a good look at what you are saying and how you came up with your "so called truth" and realize that you, sir, may in fact may just be wrong - albeit not completely I'm sure; however the POSSIBILITY is there.
You are training to be a medical professional - a scientist - and as a scientist this should be something to take into consideration. I question everything and that is what led me down my path to become a scientist. I myself hold two Bachelors of Science, one in Computer Science and one the other in Chemistry with minors in Mathematics and Physics and I am only 25 years old. Certainly I am not retarded but I don't claim to know everything especially in the light of such ambiguity.
Ultimately, the point I was trying to get across was: yes, I understand that the risk is very, very, very low and my symptoms are probably indicative of some other ailment and that "no risk" and "extremely low risk" are fundamentally two different animals. Given the audience and the wide array intelligence levels on this forum I would hate to see someone think there is absolutely without a shadow of a doubt no risk involved in receptive oral sex. I would hate to see someone go out and suck off as many men as they can expecting nothing to come of it in terms of HIV. Could you live with yourself if you told a naive kid that there is no risk getting HIV through receptive oral and then come to find out this is the very method in which they did? I would be horribly devastated. Certainly you are not held liable for information and advice on this site.
I am not looking to start flame war or a battle over statistical models and I am certainly not completely uneducated on the transmission of HIV. I was indeed ignorant and hasty in my initial risk assessment; however additional research has since cleared my worries. I will; however, stand behind the ill-advised statement that receptive oral sex is "no risk."
Thank you all and I wish you all the best.
I concur with Jean Claude and Teak 100%. While professionals and the CDC have a responsibility to be ultra conservative with wording...we do not.
Like JC said above...if it were a possibility....how many new infections would be reported daily due to oral sex? TRULY think about that.
You aren't going to be the first confirmed case.
If you cannot buy into what we are telling you...then rely on your test results. The good docs here, and also in my own professional experience have never seen a negative HIV test turn positive after 6 weeks. 12 weeks is the conservative standard.
You do not have HIV. You are WAY over-thinking this. My advice to you is to get your anxiety in check ASAP b/c it is only going to cause you a lot of undue turmoil.
Lastly.....with all due respect...I would find a new doctor. The list of "possible" diagnosis you received from him was outrageous. Nothing like fueling anxiety unnecessarily. In most cases, with most symptoms....there is a simple, garden-variety culprit behind it...not more likely a serious illness such as cancer, hepatitis, etc. It sounds like all your doc did was cause more stress for you.
Move on, enjoy life....you do not have HIV...and I would also bet money you don't have any other serious illness.
Like JC said above...if it were a possibility....how many new infections would be reported daily due to oral sex? TRULY think about that.
You aren't going to be the first confirmed case.
If you cannot buy into what we are telling you...then rely on your test results. The good docs here, and also in my own professional experience have never seen a negative HIV test turn positive after 6 weeks. 12 weeks is the conservative standard.
You do not have HIV. You are WAY over-thinking this. My advice to you is to get your anxiety in check ASAP b/c it is only going to cause you a lot of undue turmoil.
Lastly.....with all due respect...I would find a new doctor. The list of "possible" diagnosis you received from him was outrageous. Nothing like fueling anxiety unnecessarily. In most cases, with most symptoms....there is a simple, garden-variety culprit behind it...not more likely a serious illness such as cancer, hepatitis, etc. It sounds like all your doc did was cause more stress for you.
Move on, enjoy life....you do not have HIV...and I would also bet money you don't have any other serious illness.
Firstly, you are overwhelming yourself with inaccurate and meaningless statistics where HIV is concerned.
FACT- No one has EVER been confirmed to have an HIV infection via oral sex in the nearly 30 year epidemic worldwide ( you certainly won't be the first).
FACT- HIV does NOT survive outside it's host. It's ability to infect is immediately compromised through exposure to air.
FACT- The mouth has over a dozen digestive enzymes which deactivate HIV on contact. The mouth is one of the most inhospitable environments for HIV.
FACT- There are a hell of alot more **'s given than sex, if someone in the last 30 got HIV from a ** ( especially in the high risk community which usually test
more often) don't you think you'd have heard about it by now?
FACT- A NEGATIVE HIV test @ 6 weeks is very reassuring.(Retest @ 13 weeks for CONCLUSIVE confirmation of NEGATIVE status.
FACT- You can be as careful as you like with wording, you are NOT saying anything the senior people here haven't heard before in thousands of different ways. Don't play the semantics game here. Listen to the TRUTH, digest it, and move on
-Regards-
FACT- No one has EVER been confirmed to have an HIV infection via oral sex in the nearly 30 year epidemic worldwide ( you certainly won't be the first).
FACT- HIV does NOT survive outside it's host. It's ability to infect is immediately compromised through exposure to air.
FACT- The mouth has over a dozen digestive enzymes which deactivate HIV on contact. The mouth is one of the most inhospitable environments for HIV.
FACT- There are a hell of alot more **'s given than sex, if someone in the last 30 got HIV from a ** ( especially in the high risk community which usually test
more often) don't you think you'd have heard about it by now?
FACT- A NEGATIVE HIV test @ 6 weeks is very reassuring.(Retest @ 13 weeks for CONCLUSIVE confirmation of NEGATIVE status.
FACT- You can be as careful as you like with wording, you are NOT saying anything the senior people here haven't heard before in thousands of different ways. Don't play the semantics game here. Listen to the TRUTH, digest it, and move on
-Regards-
HIV is not transmitted via oral sex and you have advised of that. It's not that we need to becareful it's that you need to get educated in HIV transmission.
So I have been doing some reading on these forums.
I thank you for your vote of confidence and while I would tend to agree that the chances are extraordinarily slim, I wouldn't definitively say there is "no risk." Despite there being "no documented" cases that are a 100% confirmation of transference of the virus, saying “no risk” is implies exactly that - a 0/0 chance. That would mean if I took the loads of a thousand HIV+ people in my mouth and swallowed there is and will always be absolutely no chance what so ever that I would contract HIV.
If doctors and clinicians state that there is a 1/10000 chance of contracting HIV via receptive oral that doesn't mean there is literally "no risk." While it is a statistical improbability, that does not discount the improbability itself. There may be a 1/6300000 chance of being struck by lightening but you cannot say there is "no risk" because as you know, people CAN and DO get struck by lightening. Additionally physicists have estimated that there was a 1/43 trillion (1/43000000000000) chance of life on Earth, and we’re here aren’t we?
The point I am trying to make is that I feel we need to be very careful with wording. While I understand there are many people out there that are reassured by this statistic, I myself am not. I am slightly comforted by this number; however, Murphey’s Law seems to ring in my head: If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Maybe that is a pessimistic outlook; however I am working hard to change that.
I thank you for your vote of confidence and while I would tend to agree that the chances are extraordinarily slim, I wouldn't definitively say there is "no risk." Despite there being "no documented" cases that are a 100% confirmation of transference of the virus, saying “no risk” is implies exactly that - a 0/0 chance. That would mean if I took the loads of a thousand HIV+ people in my mouth and swallowed there is and will always be absolutely no chance what so ever that I would contract HIV.
If doctors and clinicians state that there is a 1/10000 chance of contracting HIV via receptive oral that doesn't mean there is literally "no risk." While it is a statistical improbability, that does not discount the improbability itself. There may be a 1/6300000 chance of being struck by lightening but you cannot say there is "no risk" because as you know, people CAN and DO get struck by lightening. Additionally physicists have estimated that there was a 1/43 trillion (1/43000000000000) chance of life on Earth, and we’re here aren’t we?
The point I am trying to make is that I feel we need to be very careful with wording. While I understand there are many people out there that are reassured by this statistic, I myself am not. I am slightly comforted by this number; however, Murphey’s Law seems to ring in my head: If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Maybe that is a pessimistic outlook; however I am working hard to change that.
Forgot to add:
01/07 - (48 days EXP / 28 days SX / 4th day RX) Most Symptoms persist. Lymph remains unchanged. Went to hospital to get tests done.
01/07 - (48 days EXP / 28 days SX / 4th day RX) Most Symptoms persist. Lymph remains unchanged. Went to hospital to get tests done.
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