symptoms

[bamboosalt]

i would say everyone 's ARS symptoms are different.

from what i heard by chat, they all experiences different degree of Fever, but some of them had sore throat, some had rash, some went to hosipital for intensive care.

even their symptoms occur on different period, the fast one like on day 8, and quite many said after 3 weeks.

[bamboosalt]

thanks for your reply.

i dont think you have HIV, again ARS onset not early than 7 days mostly. mine is on day 8.

very fit the timeframe, have already told by Dr.HHH.

i could not say anything to my parents, they will be very crazy once they heard i am Poz. last time, i just told my dad that i am gay, he was upset and crying at his office for days. He is a very strong man, never had this feeling before, he told me that he feels so hopless, because he did not educate me well.

i am the only child in my family, they are waiting for my marriage news since years ago. i am almost 27 now.

currently i am not living with them, i will be back to my home country 1st March for good.

i can see my father 's msn appears online everyday, i always made my msn offline. i dont wanna talk to him at the moment, because he can feel the strange from my words.

i love my parents, i am so self-fish. i never made them happy in my entire life, always bring the pressure to them.

everytime i get sick, my Mather could not sleep well, last time, she lost her hair quite much, all this due to my bad behaviour.

let me say if i am poz, i can have 10 years life with good meds, alright. time goes fast. 10 years? too short for me, i need more time to enjoy my life with my parents.

[kimoz]

Bamboo I have follow alot of your post. Guess what I am going through similar experience as you do. Many unexplainable symptoms shortly after a suspicous encounter. The first thing i had in my mind is hiv too when I first develop a fever. I think we have similar risk, maybe mine is even slightly higher. And if you ask me I am very much convinced myself that I am infected too, even though everyone around don't think so. We have similar time frame of onset of symptoms too, yours around day 6 mine is day 5, except my symptoms last longer than yours. Anyway I still think its very very likely that you will be fine, I am already preparing for the worst myself though. If either one of us turn out positive, maybe we can make history to become the first to get infected this way (Ok that is meant to be a joke, but lets take it easy we are all going through the same thing here) Good luck!

[bamboosalt]

thanks everybody.

i did not eat anything these 5 days, i could not face my result next tuesday. you know i really think i am Poz. my symptoms on day 6 after expouse, came quickly and i got no time to think about what happend to my body. it was nightmare, i dont think you guys have ever experienced this , made me scared really.

my partner, i know nothing about his status. only the test his done last month, which might be a fake paper, in window period, or typed by himself.

he refused to answer any questions about HIV, what can i do ?

4 days to collect my result. i can imagine that i will cry when i talk to the nurse next time, and she only can gave me some nice words for hope.

[Xhost]

Bamboo,

Wow, can see that you're in a bad place right now. For that I am sorry. Many of us here know what it is like to be in your shoes, trust me. Most of us have been right where you are, sweating out an HIV test, unsure of what we read, reading too much about HIV, unable to logically process what people are telling us. In short, you are in the grip of HIV anxiety, and it can be a pernicious and terrible affliction.

The first step in getting out of this self imposed hell is to realize you have the power to do so. The simple fact is this: you do not have HIV, could not have gotten it from the encounter that you described. That's it, no ifs, ands or buts. In all of the years of the HIV virus, through millions upon millions of infections, no one has contracted HIV in the manner that you have described. No documented cases of having caught it in this way exist. Think about that for just a second. Not a single person out of millions. We could discuss the reasons for this, go into the mechanics of HIV transmission and the like, but really, just the fact that it has never happened should be a pretty good indication of the fact that HIV ins't transmitted in these ways.

I know, right now it's hard to think rationally about all of this. It seems you are drowning in a pool of anxiety, trapped by your fears. The more you think about it, the more you want to read about it, the more you read about it, the more you think about it, until finally, one day, you're convinced you've got it. But that belief isn't based in fact, it is based on emotion. Your problem now isn't that you may have HIV (you do not), it is anxiety, maybe depression and stress.

It really is amazing what anxiety and stress can do to one's mental and physical condition. And I speak from experience. I too had a low risk exposure, but when I was going through this hell, I didn't believe it was so low risk. No matter what anyone told me, doctors, counselors, nurses, Internet forum posters, I not only didn't listen, I found myself incapable of listening. I had every symptom in the book, save for a few: dramatic weight loss, ulcers in the mouth, enlarged lymph nodes, night sweats, severe sore throat, etc. You name it, I had it. I was sure that this was it, my ticket was punched.

Funny thing, though, as time passed I began to realize that my symptoms weren't due to HIV, they were due to anxiety, or stress, or guilt, or whatever. I eventually realized that I needed a bit of help to deal with what I was going through. So, I decided to seek a bit of therapy. And after a while, I gradually began to realize what my problem was, and it wasn't HIV.

Another funny thing, once I realized that I didn't have HIV, all of my "symptoms" just faded away. I came to understand that my lymph nodes hadn't really been any larger than normal, I only thought they were because I read somewhere that that was a symptom of primary HIV infection. My sore throat? A common, everyday cold. Weight loss? I was so stressed, I wasn't eating very much. Night sweats? Well, that trickle of sweat running down my back didn't really constitute a night sweat. In other words, everything I thought was a symptom really wasn't - I just came to believe that they were. I literally went to bed one night feeling crappy and woke up the next day feeling pretty good. Amazing, isn't it?

Does any of this sound familiar to you, Bamboo? If so, do yourself a favor and spend a little bit of time each day not thinking about HIV. Instead, try to think about why you are really going through this. What is it that is causing your fear, your anxiety, really? It isn't HIV - I know that, and one day, you will too.

Just a final bit of advice before I end this, the longest ever post on MedHelp. If you are worried about the things going on in your body, visit with a doctor and let he or she check you out. Talk about your physical "symptoms", and also talk about the anxiety you are experiencing. The doctor may be able to help in that regard, either with a prescription or a referal to a mental health specialist (the latter did me a world of good, and you might find it beneficial as well).

In the meantime, good luck dealing with your anxiety. The good news is that one day you will look back on all of this, shake your head, and wonder how you ever worked yourself up into such a state. I do it, and you will too.

Take care of yourself.

[WorriedT]

Hi bamboosalt. I think you'll find most health workers who catch HIV through a health setting normally do so through needle stick injuries. The presence of blood in needles stops the blood from drying, therefore extending the lifespan of the virus out of the human body.

The reason why they are so careful is because there are other blood borne diseases that are much easier to catch than HIV. Hep B is an example.

[txtony]

1.the reason everyones ars symptoms are different is because it is unrelated to hiv. either their neg,or never had a risk.
2.cant self diagnose hiv through symptoms, proven time and time again, symptoms are unreliable.
testing tells the story, if 6 wks then 3 mos test, then by conservative testing your neg. with a risk.
if no risk, then no need for testing. good luck.