[Question #12906] Oral sex Encounter HIV risk?

4 months ago

Hi there doctors, I recently had an encounter with a random male on a hookup site. He claimed to be disease free and apparently has never hooked up with a guy before. As for me, I have never hooked up with a guy either and I decided to perform unprotected oral sex on him. The encounter lasted about 10-15 mins and I did not let him ejaculate in my mouth. My throat hurt not to long after the encounter and still kind of does. It’s been 10 days since the encounter and anxiety is getting the best of me as I am afraid of contracting HIV. I haven’t been to the dentist in a while so I’m not sure how my oral health is and the guy has since then deleted his account. What are the chances I am at a high risk for HIV, let alone STDS and I still kind of have a sore throat but no visible marks in my mouth. Am I worrying to much about this? Or should I move on with my day and not worry anymore annd continue heterosexual relations. again for taking up my question. Further more I don’t plan to engage in homosexual encounters anymore.

Edward W. Hook M.D.

4 months ago

Welcome to our Forum. Thanks for your questions. I'll be glad to comment. The encounter your describe was low risk for the following reasons:

1. Most people do not have STIs.

2. Even when they do, most single exposures with those persons who are infected do not result in infection

3. Among penetrative sex acts, performing oral sex on an infected partner is less likely to lead to infection than other varieties of penetrative sex (i.e penile vaginal or penile-rectal)

4. The risk of HIV is close to zero- if your partner happened to have untreated HIV, the risk for infection from a single sex act would be less than 1 in 10,000.

5. When persons do get oral STIs they are most often asymptomatic.

Thus, what to do:

If I were you I would not be worried. Whether or not you test is a personal decision. If you want to be entirely confident you were not infected, the most likely STI would be gonorrhea which can be reliably diagnosed with a throat swab for gonorrhea any time more than 3-4 days after an exposure. If you wish to test for HIV, testing with a 4th generation, combination HIV antigen/antibody tesst will be conclusive at 6 weeks. Although more expensive, an HIV RNA PCR test would give conclusive results any time more than 11 days after the exposure.

I hope this information is helpful. If any part of this is unclear or there are further question, please use your up to 2 follow-ups for clarification EWH

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4 months ago

Thanks doctor for replying. I know you said testing is a personal decision but would you say there’s no need since the.

Chance is so close to zero ? Like would you if you were in my shoes? Just trynna use your feedback to make my decision. I just need reassurance is all I appreciate the feedback.

Edward W. Hook M.D.

4 months ago

I would be comfortable not testing if I were you. EWH---