Aa
Wound to worry about?
Last week I got hit in the mouth with a hockey puck, left a cut just below my bottom lip, and one on the inside from my tooth. Cut on the outside maybe could've used a single stitch at the most, was maybe a 1/4" long by a 1/10" wide. A few min or so after washing it off with a water bottle a teammate of mine touched my face by the cut to see if it was split or not. Don't remember him directly touching the cut. I happened so quick I didn't realize it. I did not see any open wounds or cuts on his hand and did not see any visible blood. I found out that he used to use drugs at an earlier age and has a questionable past. Now I am worrying if he has HIV if I now have a risk of getting it. I am very worried now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
You had no risk of HIV because you can't get HIV from touching HIV. You are so safe that you don't even need to test.
HIV is instantly inactivated in air which means it is effectively dead as soon as it leaves someone's body so it can't infect from touching. It doesn't matter if you and they were actively bleeding or had cuts at the time either because the HIV is effectively dead.
Only adult risks are unprotected penetrating vaginal or anal sex or sharing needles that you inject with but you didn't do that so you had no risk. This sentence is all you need to know to protect yourself against HIV.
Even with blood, lactation cuts, rashes, burns etc air does not allow inactivated virus to infect from touching it. The above HIV science is 40 years old and very well established so nothing you can add will make your situation a risk.
HIV is instantly inactivated in air which means it is effectively dead as soon as it leaves someone's body so it can't infect from touching. It doesn't matter if you and they were actively bleeding or had cuts at the time either because the HIV is effectively dead.
Only adult risks are unprotected penetrating vaginal or anal sex or sharing needles that you inject with but you didn't do that so you had no risk. This sentence is all you need to know to protect yourself against HIV.
Even with blood, lactation cuts, rashes, burns etc air does not allow inactivated virus to infect from touching it. The above HIV science is 40 years old and very well established so nothing you can add will make your situation a risk.
2 Comments
Thank you for the quick response! Just to clarify, I had an active bleeding cut, and he did not. Sorry, I was just very worried when I heard about his past. After reading your response and re thinking the situation it makes me feel better. Thank you.
You have never heard of a professional athlete getting HIV during a game or a child on a playground getting it but all of them get cut lots of times.
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