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Avatar universal

Tested NEGATIVE despite ALL ARS Symptoms and More (long story but you won’t regret reading this)

Hey everyone, I finally tested for the first time ever after 9 weeks (63 days) for the Rapid tests. NEGATIVE! Wanted to post my results here on Tues but then I read some thread here comparing different tests and how ELISA was the gold standard… F*CK! So I sweated some more and went back to the clinic to get tested for that too (they normally don’t do it in India unless the first test is positive). Anyway, got those results today, also negative!

My symptoms ~4 weeks after my exposures. Heck, even a celibate monk would get worried.  

- Rash: Macropopulous, slightly raised multiple (like 30-40) red pimple like spots on upper chest, neck and stomach, spread at random, some itchy but not much. Disappeared after about 3-4 days
- Fever: Mild to high and lasted for 8-9 days. I’ve hardly ever had a fever last more than 3 days before. At times I was burning hot all over.
- White Tongue: I’m not talking about the stuff in the middle of the tongue. I had distinct white patches and bumps and a pale white coating on both the sides of my tongue, accompanied by what looked like teeth marks and sounded very much like OHL. Was a horrible sight in the mornings.
- Dry Mouth and excessive thirst
- Peeling Skin/Slow Healing Sores: Especially on both my elbows and palms which sounded like psoriasis. Took like 2-3 weeks to heal.
- Lumps/Lymph Nodes: Didn’t see any on my neck or armpits but couple definitely on my arms which are still there. Hard nodule kind of things about 2cm in diameter
- Frequent Urination: Almost every 1-2 hours, 10-12 times a day at worst. Thought it was interstitial cystitis.
- Falling Hair: Just had to stroke my hand through my hair once and a dozen hairs would fall out just like that. Thought it was alopecia and the auto immune disease was attacking my hair.
- Mild Sore Throat and difficulty swallowing
- Chronic Diarrhea:  Loose stools at first but watery later on. Lasted for good 3 weeks.
- Petechiae: red pin ***** spots around limbs
- Body Aches: Especially the joints and changed places every day. Woke up with stiff lower back. Neck creaked all day.
- Insomnia: Would head to bed around 2am after exhausting reading the forums, fall asleep by 3am, and wake up 3 hours later for no reason, and could not fall back asleep again the whole day. Nightmares every night and sometimes I felt paralyzed in bed unable to even lift my head
- Fatigue, Headaches, Depression, Mood Swings, Apathy, Loss of Concentration: (perhaps obvious after lack of sleep so relatively did not think this was a big deal but seemed lethal when combined with everything else)
- Loss of Appetite and Nausea while eating: again maybe obvious due to anxiety
- Weight Loss: around 4-5 lbs, probably from loss of appetite. I forced myself to eat so I didn’t have to confront yet another symptom that seemed like an obvious indicator of hiv, else I would have lost double that weight easily.

My exposures? I had protected sex with a CSW in Bangkok (she handled the condom the entire time) and a major operation soon after in same city - involving needles, stitches, anesthesia, IV drip etc. Yes, on paper, both incidents appeared zero to low risk and many members on this forum also advised me of such. However, you might understand how paranoid I got after getting almost every single symptom in the book and that too in the dreaded ‘window’ period. And accidents can always happen in even the best western hospitals and have happened before. Anyway, this just goes to prove even more that symptoms really can mean nothing at all and there is such a thing as coincidence. If you had a risk, just get tested! Second guessing and internet exploring will only magnify your existing symptoms and lead to several others.
13 Responses
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Avatar universal
Did you check for EBV?  Epstein Barr Virus have the same symptoms as HIV.  I am sure you contracted EBV during that one night stand.
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Avatar universal
You should get tested on week 12 and 24. Have you done that? And what the result?
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Avatar universal
DO NOT POST TO OLD THREADS. THIS THREAD IS 3 YEARS OLD.
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Avatar universal
Not sure if you check this brother...
But i had the same worry about an encounter in BKK, earlier this year. I havene thad the plethora of symptoms you had, juts a few body aches and perhaps a fever of 99.5. diarrhea happened after eating out, a friend got the loosies too. dont know what to think. its been 7 months, i am petrified to test. i hope my story ends like yours.

i had protected sex in bkk, i always thouhgt that was safe. but ten my OCd makes we wonder if it was really protected, did i notice if it broke, what if ti broke and i didnt know?

but your story is very uplifting. cheers. wishing you the vest best!
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Avatar universal
Those symptoms could be anything.  Especially since you were in a hospital (let alone in India or Thailand those places are sickness hot beds).  In all honestly, I would just let it go, or just see a doctor because you might have a flu.  The killer was when you said you rash and stuff hit in three days.  It's damn rare under 10 days.  I did hear a report a few years ago there were a very few people with a variant that wouldn't test positive, but that was in Africa and they got sick just a few months after infection; it wasn't spread.

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Avatar universal
Hi Doc, this is libra1974, I have a question about HIV. From the time their is an exposure to the time you get symptoms what is the correct average? I know I have read alot about it and it has said different times that with some it varies on the individual and whether or not their immune system isn't already compromised...However with saying that, If I was possibly exposed in July which I don't remember but if I was exposed July 5th  I remembered I had the herpes comlex 1 on the corner of my mouth would this delay seroconversion if their was a possible exposure with HIV?And how long do symptoms persist for? I know that varies with the individuals but once again their is an average. I just like to know this info for my own peace of mind.....Thank you once again.
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Avatar universal
This can only give us more courage....tx for sharing...
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Avatar universal
symptom dosent mean nothing
tested will prove u are not infected
and 9 weeks is a good indicator
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Avatar universal
know the feeling had all that for 11.5 months now plus others, counted 50 symptoms in total. incl ppink eye, brain fog, vertigo, nausia etc, etc tests all neg up to 11 months, its destroyed me combination of the chronic sickness but also the anxiety it has caused. I have also had severe muscle wasting for past 6 months. my possible exposure was anal/oral with thai tranny then fevers etc 9 days later. Still living in hell, for a year next saturday
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Avatar universal
I love this thread, it's just what I need, because I'm going through all that. Hey, Uglyduck btw... saw you on the other forum. Take care. Relax... but at the same time, chime in when you get your three month neg as well, right? I think we'd be roughly the same time.
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208164 tn?1189755832
After my exposure, I had diarrhea on and off, the following week I experienced a sore throat that went away the next day after taking some lozenges, but came back about 2 weeks later. The sore throat occurred right after getting caught in the rain since it was spring. I had persistent itching on my left arm and under my chin, and that was days after reading up on HIV on webmd.com. I felt what I thought were swollen lymph nodes under the jaw, and I'm guessing that was because I was prodding and poking feeling around for them. I still feel those them from time to time but I guess I just began to notice. I also felt needle pains on my armpits. I had recuring canker sores and yeast infections. All this occurred while I was pregnant, and pregnant women are more vulnerable to colds/flus, which explained my sore throat. Canker sores and yeast infections are also common during pregnancy. I had a 6 week negative and my husband (who exposed me) got his 12 week negative, and I also tested negative when I opted to get tested at the labor/delivery room. I never had that rash or the fever. It's so true that anxiety can trigger all these symptoms. The week after I had my babies was when I started experiencing a low grade fever, and the following week I had night sweats. At that point I wondered if they missed something but that is also a common symptom after childbirth, especially after a c-section, which I had.
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256486 tn?1189755833
Nice!! is 2:29 A.M. and I'm going to sleep so all I'm going to say is Good luck my friend, and be safe...

God bless ya too!!!
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Avatar universal
ctd...

After my exposure, I was hardly worried about HIV. It was only 2-3 days after the symptoms started appearing (mainly the rash and fever) that I started to panic. Immediately, all the other symptoms started to appear but probably because I was looking exclusively for them. I realized even at that time that many of the latter symptoms on my list could be attributed to anxiety. However, I have faced anxiety before in my life like due to education and career, laid off twice before, but never experienced anything remotely similar. Besides, I thought only a slow buildup of anxiety like chronic anxiety could start to produce symptoms like falling hair and frequent urination. If I just started worrying about HIV, could such symptoms appear so quickly within a day or two and simultaneously?

Besides, although frequent urination and hair loss aren’t typical ARS symptoms from what I have read, they still can occur with infected individuals. But so can almost every single symptom possible be linked to the disease. On the other hand, almost all of these symptoms can be linked to other conditions as well. Anxiety is just one of them. Lupus or other auto immune diseases are others. Heck, at one point, I suspected mercury poisoning from the fillings in my teeth, and yes I read that they too can cause all these symptoms.  

After getting my results, many of my symptoms which had persisted for weeks went away almost miraculously and immediately. For the first time in weeks, I slept for 8 hours in a day. My frequent urination went from 10 times a day to just 4 and then 2 the next day. I gained 3 lbs in the last 2 days and been eating ravenously. No more body aches, fatigue, dry mouth, diarrhea. White patches have almost disappeared. Hopefully the hair loss will reverse soon too.

I have no answer as to what caused the rash and fever in the first place. But truly the rest was probably due to stress. I guess in normal anxiety cases, it is never so much a case of life and death, and we have responses to deal with them and take action accordingly. However, it is my theory that when we suddenly observed any ARS symptom, we get the equivalent of a panic attack and this can trigger an immediate outbreak of serious anxiety related symptoms. Worrying all day long can cause hormonal imbalances that can lead to all kinds of weird stuff. As for my ‘leukoplakia’ or ‘candida’, my dentist said that it was caused by my tongue rubbing against my teeth mostly in my sleep. Yes, when we are disturbed, even in our sleep, we tend to move our tongues more and suck saliva more, and also bite our tongues, resulting in ulcers and dry mouth.

Only doctors and tests can truly diagnose your illness if any and differentiate between different conditions. Not the internet nor these forums. The problem with Google is that it mostly displays the most popular results for searches that users have searched for in the past. So for example, a user like me might enter 'white tongue', and bang, I get all the pages that say it is a result of HIV infection. But as my dentist says, there are actually dozens of reasons OHL like symptoms can appear. In normal cases, if there was absolutely no worry of hiv, a person with a white tongue might see it in the mirror and go straight to his dentist. He would not sit around looking for its causes on the internet. So those pages do not appear at the top of our search results since they are nowhere near as popular as hiv-related web pages.

Anyway, I have gone on for too long. I’m going to take a bit of a break from these forums to relax for a bit and take my mind off it but plan to do some reading up so I can be better informed and be of some help to others in the future on sites like these. I’m done with testing though. With all my symptoms I would have seroconverted by now if I was positive. I’m not going to go on a hunt either to figure out any other conditions either. If they happen again, then maybe I might investigate but done for now.

I want to really thank everyone here who patiently provided me with so much information and support in the last couple of weeks and sustained me through this ordeal until I could also get tested. You guys are the greatest and were my only help when I had nowhere else to turn to.

I wish everyone here the best. Good luck to everyone and Keep the Faith.
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