Barely know where to start, exactly what I will say when I get myself to the doctors next week. In 2009 I was seeing a Japanese girl in Tokyo for a couple of months, had unprotected sex with her a handful of times, later on in the year I was in Thailand met a girl whilst drunk and had unprotected sex with her in a one night stand, she incidently bled everywhere which even when I was blind drunk scared the crap out of me. Neither of them working girls, I am still in contact with both via facebook but naturally that does not mean that they are not HIV+. Prior to the beginning of this year I have never had any health issues, but for the past 6 months I have been getting recurrent boils on my neck and under my armpit, instantly alarm bells began to ring out, especially when about 3 months ago I caught a cold for a week or so and broke out in many spots all over my neck and chest. I also managed to develop jock itch, athletes foot and ring worm in the space of a week. It is then that I question my actions in the past and can only put it down to the downgrading of my immune system due to my bout of unprotected sex. I work in the middle of nowhere in Australia and don’t really have local health care access, and for the past 3 months have just been trolling the internet looking at symptom after symptom and weighing up all the possibilities. My anxiety has reached a level so desperate that I am now jacking in my job and have bought myself a plane ticket back to my home country of England WHERE I plan to tell my doctor exactly what I am saying here and finally get a HIV test, I’ve stressed myself so much that my hair is going grey, I just think about the possibilities every minute of everyday, but I have a very strong gut feeling that I will in fact be positive. So I feel the boils are perhaps a form of folicitus or staph, but can that last for up to 6 months if untreated? And why when I had a cold did I break out in so many spots? My right arm occasionally aches also. I’m just so convinced in my mind that I have HIV, I’m already planning the next phase of my life when I’m told that I’m positive, that I won’t really go into as I’ve already chuntered on for far to long, I just needed to vent this to see what peoples thoughts might be. Have any folk ever had recurring boils and took it as a symptom and been tested positive?
Any thoughts and suggestions would be most grateful, this time next week I hope to be getting tested for peace of mind whatever the outcome.
Thanks,
Raz.
Well ok. If you in contact with them why not ask them if they have had a HIV test, not sure you havnt done so before?
The boils and other symptoms are NOT HIV related. HIV dose not give those symptoms ( as HIV dosnt really have specific symptoms) and as for having a cold, blimey we all get them. Most people only find out they have HIV by chance or when admitted into hospital for being very ill.
Your status can only be confirmed by a test and whilst doing so ytou should test for all STD's. I cannot speculate on your status but i would say if your stressing so much then you really should find a place in Aussy land to get a test ( for your peace of mind ) or certainly contact the other girls.
__________________
“Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.”
"Being defeated is only a temporary condition; giving up is what makes it permanent".
The Following User Says Thank You to Apollo123 For This Useful Post: Raziel_Eidos (07-12-2011)
Nothing you have described resembles a primary HIV infection. The early symptoms of an HIV infection if they occur at all normally appear between two to four weeks and do not extend for months afterwards.
Yes you have had a risk, you had unprotected vaginal sex but this does not mean you have automatically acquired HIV. HIV is extremely difficult to pass from one person to another and you don't even know if the ladies involved actually have HIV. Simply jumping to this conclusion years afterwards is never a great idea.
When anybody as an HIV concern they do exactly what you are doing, get online and start reading up on symptoms and looking for tell tale signs. This is actually the worst thing you could do. The symptoms of HIV are non specific, meaning there is no set pattern to them. What you read as lists of symptoms are not check lists. They are general symptoms gathered from people who have tested positive. HIV is never self diagnosed and the amount or lack of symptoms you may or may not have and will have absolutely no bearing on the outcome of an HIV test. I would advise you very strongly to stop trying to diagnose yourself and stop fuelling your own anxieties by continually reading up on HIV. If you read enough online you will find no amount of stuff to fuel you concerns and anxieties. Most of the stuff is outdated, a lot of it misleading and some of it completely wrong.
I don't see why you feel the need to return to the UK for an HIV test as they do them in Australia but I guess this is your call.
As to speculating about your HIV status, nobody online will ever do that. An HIV test and only an HIV test will determine your status. Nothing else will, no amount of online reading, no amount of speculating and reading list after list of symptoms and no amount of worrying will. And please stop playing out worst case scenarios; it is far from a foregone conclusion you have acquired HIV.
Please take my advice, stop what you are doing, calm down and get checked out. In all probability the ladies didn't have HIV and you will come out of this fine. But you should get checked out.
Kevin.
Last edited by blokecalledkev; 07-11-2011 at 03:14 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to blokecalledkev For This Useful Post: Raziel_Eidos (07-12-2011)
You see the internet doesn’t help really when I Google my symptoms, it puts ideas into my head, I type in recurrent boils and it feeds me facts like ‘Recurrent boils are an indication to a suppressed immune system’ and kindly gives an example such as ‘HIV/AIDS’. And the other minor ailments just seem to suggest further evidence to my apparently suppressed immune system, maybe its just down to the fact that my health has been so good for so many years that when finally things start to slide I immediately jump to these such conclusions.
And in regards to contacting the girls, I did actually contact the Thai girl a couple of months back which at the time was my main concern but she confirmed that everything was ok, incidentally she is now married. The Japanese ex I would feel uncomfortable asking her as she is likely to get just as depressed as me, I’ll just test first and if there is an issue with my results then obviously I will have to let her know.
The initial plan was to head to Sydney and get tested there, but they don’t do a RAPID test here, waiting and sweating it out a week even though I’ve already left it this long would be tough going, so I’ll head back to the UK for a little break and get myself screened there, I also thought if my results are positive then it’s better to be closer to home and family than a million miles away, even though not entirely sure if I would have it in me to tell my mum, but naturally I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Anyway, thanks guys for your thoughts, much appreciated, I will test next week for clarification and ideally will acquire peace of mind, time will tell.
i'm not going to sugar coat it.
boils are an indication of someone being infected long term
without knowing about it.
BUT just because you get them proves NOTHING
until you get yourself tested.
in over 13 years of being infected,i have gottin about a half dozen of them.
the thing is i get them most of the time on my inner thigh/leg
stll from what you say, i wouldn't go nuts over it untill you got tested.
you will most of the time, have many more then one symptom
going on when you get infected.
symptoms will not and cannot diagnose you.
good luck with the test
let us know how you make out!
The Following User Says Thank You to smiteler For This Useful Post: Raziel_Eidos (07-12-2011)
Hi, thanks for your honesty there, I have my doubts as I like to think I know my body and it just doest feel quite the ticket over these past few months, nothing major but just little complications, mostly skin affiliated apart from the muscle aches in the right arm. But I shall drop a line when I have test results regardeless of the outcome just for reference sake.
Thanks.
keep in mind, that by the time that will usually happen
to someone, you would also have severe fatique and have some other
serious health issues going on at the same time.
it didn't happen to me untill many years after i got infected.
so do not be hung up or dwell on it.
hang on to what the tests tell you.
