so here is my story:

when i was in highschool i slept around...i thought i was invincible, that nothing could ever happen to me....i am now 21 and in march, after sleeping with someone i had just met, i decided to be more careful when it came to sex...i have not been sleeping with anyone because im scared of getting hiv...well this past weekend i was out drinking and i ended up hooking up with a guy..we did not have sex but we were naked in the jacuzzi and i had my legs wrapped around him...his penis was very close to my vagina (it almost went in a couple of times)...i wake up this morning and i am really achy...come to find out today that this man is hiv positive...i am freaking out...i am soooo scared that i got it...i feel like i have been given so many chances (since i used to sleep around) so now i deserve what i get

when is the soonest i could possibly be tested and get an accurate result?


any advice would be great...thank you

jess

well i'm not a expert, but it's a pretty small risk from that.
If you did somehow get it there are drugs to take on a 2 week basis i think that would minimize your risk of actually having the disease.

keep in mind this is all stuff i've picked up while researching it myself.
But if you think you got it just go tell the doc and he'll probably set you up on the drugs to ensure you have a high chance of killing it before it starts to take effect.

hello,

a couple of questions for you. how did you find out this person is HIV+?

did his penis get close to your vagina? or rub on it?

despite what your answers may be, your risk is literally next to nothing. HIV is a very weak virus. i do not believe that it could survive in the chemicals in a hot tub for any length of time.

if you have unprotected sex with an HIV+ individual, you have a 1/500-1/8000 risk of contracting HIV. you did not have sex. your exposure was so very very minimal. out of the hundreds of millions of people that have unprotected sex every day, only 40,000 people test + each year. these are typically from people that engage in high risk activity over a long time period.

the soonest you can get tested is (this is according to the CDC) 90 days from the last possible exposure.

one more thing, i assure you that if you obsess about having contracted HIV, your body will do just about everything to convince you that you did. please take solice in the fact that there is virtually no way you could have contracted HIV in this way and test at 90 days so you can have a big sigh of relief. do not drive yourself to the funny farm durring the 90 day wait.

Nyxin,

This reply was ever so helpful to me, as well. Thank you.

You may not remember me, but you did respond to the ONE post I made a few months ago on the lymphoma message board. I had a lymph node biopsied and was going through some rough times. You shared your story with me on there and it helped me then too.

Thanks,

Chelle

thank you all so much for your responses...the next few months are going to be hard...i cant stop thinking about what i will do if i contracted hiv...i have to find a way to make it through these next months not worrying or else it will eat me up inside..thanks again for all of your support

jess

...the next few months are going to be hard...i cant stop thinking about what i will do if i contracted hiv...i have to find a way to make it through these next months not worrying or else it will eat me up inside...

There's a tradition we have here when we receive our negative results. We list every symptom (and there are many!) that we've had to live through over the course of the previous 3 months. Every one of these symptoms is caused by stress and could have been prevented by simply calming down. It happens to all of us!

It's definitely human nature to worry. But, if you spend the next three months obsessing about this, your body will be under extreme stress and many physical symptoms (of weakened immunity caused by stress) will appear. Remember I said that.

Please take care of yourself, and put this out of your mind if you can. I look forward to hearing about your negative result in a few weeks time. Good luck and take care -

J

We list every symptom (and there are many!) that we've had to live through over the course of the previous 3 months. Every one of these symptoms is caused by stress and could have been prevented by simply calming down. It happens to all of us!

J

This is not true for some of us. Like me, maybe my symptoms weren't from my HIV exposure since I am officially negative but they are real. And I will have to live with them for the rest of my life. The whole time I thought I had HIV it turned out to be different autoimmune diseases. My symptoms weren't from stress and the only thing helping somewhat is my anti inflamatories and sleeping pills etc......... I didn't catch HIV I was lucky (and believe me I've learned a lesson)

I guess my family just has really bad genes. I wish I'd have known, because now I have two children and to think that because of our family illnesses they'll have to suffer makes me sick and so sad.

i talked to my doctor today and she said i should get tested asap and then in 6 months so they can compare the #'s....i thought i learned a lesson previously but i was drinking this time and my thinking went out the window...now its time to look at my drinking...that goes under a whole different board...i just pray to God that i am okay...thank you everyone for your replies

jess