Question on HIV exposure

[chicone1951]

Hello,

5 weeks ago, I had unprotected sex with someone I work on occasion with (office type jobs). I travel for my company & have to work with her & others every month or so. Well, I am ashamed to say that she is also married, of which I feel very bad, but I'll have to deal with that. She is 52 years old and we were all drinking one night when the event occurred.  Before we had intercourse, I had asked her if she had ever done anything like this before & she said no that she has only been with her husband. I feel that I believe her, as I have known her now for about 2 years. Also, she has been married for 25 years. Anyhow, 1 week later, when I went to urinate, I felt a mild discomfort in my penis. I looked at it & there was some blood coming out at the end (not a whole lot, but enough to make me worry). This happened for exactly one day. I immediately went and got a full range of STD/ HIV tests, which everything came back negative. This past weekend (about 4.5 weeks after the event), I came down with a cold after flying back to my home state. I had a pain in my lung area and went to the ER, where the doctor said I had bronchitis and he gave me azithromyicin (the doc said the pain was from my coughing, which was very mucus like). During the first night of the cold, I had a mild fever & slight night sweats.  That was 4 days ago & feel fine now.

My concerns are, even though I know I exposed myself, what are your thoughts on the blood coming out of the tip of my penis for that one day? (it was coming from the urethra)

I have also read some on this site & am a little confused on the 'chances' of HIV from an incident like mine, such as 1 in a 1000 or something like that?

Last thing, did the HIV test I took a week after the incident have any baring on accuracy of the sex event? or was it too early? I have heard that I should be ok after a test at 6 weeks, how accurate is that?

I have not had a sex partner other than her & that one time, for over a year.

Thank you.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

A 1 week test means little.  At 6 weeks a test will detect about 95% of recently acquired infections.  EWH

[chicone1951]

Dr. Hook, your presumption is correct in that she is not an IV drug user (or any type of drug).

Not sure if you saw my questions within the original posting on the accuracy of the 1 week HIV test I had after the sex event and how accurate a 6 week test is?

Again, much obliged.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to the Forum.  I'll try to help. From what you tell me, this was low risk exposure, both because of who your partner was an because of the fact that you had a single encounter.

Your partner first.  She was a 52 YOU professional woman. I presume she did not use IV drugs and you indicate that she has been in a longstanding monogamous reacton.  Statistically the likelihood that this woman had HIV is very low, less than 1 in 10,000.

Even if she had HIV, the risk remains low. The risk of HIV form a single heterosexual encounter is less than 1 in 1000.  Putting these two figures togethr, your risk for HIV is less than 1 in 10 million.  You are hundreds of times more likely to get struck by lightning.

I do not have a good explanation for the blood from your urethra.  This is not a sign of HIV and your other STD tests are negative. Occasionally men do have transient bleeding from the urethra and when it does, it rarely has an obvious cause an does not recur.  Should your bleeding recur, you need to seek the opinion of a urologist.

Hope this helps.  Your really have little to worry about. EWH

[chicone1951]

I forgot to add, that my company travel is within the US.