Question
I am experiencing lots of different symptoms – could I have HIV?
7 May 2010. Related: All topics, HIV testing, HIV transmission.
Firstly can I congratulate on your great site and all the good you do!
I’m a healthy 29 year old white male from Scotland. My situation is that I had unprotected oral sex and what I think/hope was protected (unsure because of alcohol) vaginal sex in Nigeria with a woman I met in a bar in Lagos.
Testing wise I have had a 4th generation test at 5 and 10 weeks, Rapid
Insti tests for HIV1/2 at 4 months and a 4th generation test at 4.5 and 6.5 months and finally another 4th generation test at 11.5 months exposure. All were negative.
I’ve also had a full STD screening including Hepatitis B but not Hepatitis C out to 6 months and normal blood tests at 2 months, 4 months and 1 year post exposure including an Anti-nuclear test.
However since 10 weeks post exposure I’ve had sore lymph areas on and off especially in my arm pits. They disappeared but return from time to time. Almost 2 years on I get a feeling of bruising over certain parts of my body and for the past 8 months I have had multiple eye floaters which have been checked by an optician nothing adverse noticed so they are unexplained.
The last 2 weeks I have started to get very numb hands during then night with the numbness staying in my left thumb and possibly index finger constantly, I can still feel pain and heat. An ex of mine also developed very bad case of scaly skin on her eyelids.
I also have had 3 genital wart type things and some night sweats. I get the odd very small brown/red dot on my feet which looks like a blood blister then peels and I seem to have developed a constant case of tonsil sores on one tonsil. I’ve also had 2 very bad cases of flu in the last year and I never usually got ill or have had any of these things in the past!
Could these symptoms have anything to do with HIV or am I completely in the clear even taking into consideration the West Africa factor? I have always been of good health until the 10 weeks after my incident!
Answer
Thank you for your question.
The fourth generation tests you mentioned will detect 95% of infections at 4 weeks after infection. They detect more than 99.99% of infections by 12 weeks. If you have had multiple tests all of which have come back negative then your results are conclusive. You do not have HIV.
You should try to see you GP about the other symptoms you have been experiencing. They could be as a result of the anxiety you have been feeling or they could be due to something else. It is worth getting them checked out to make sure.
For more information on HIV transmission and testing please follow this link to the i-Base factsheet.