[Question #13590] Nervous about hiv, I'm female
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10 hours ago
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Hi, I'm worried about getting HIV.8 days ago i had a ONS with a Swiss guy, 27, from a party. He was visiting my country. we did not exchange contacts. First 2 times we had PIV sex I was tipsy so I can't clearly remember if he wore a condom. when my anxiety subsides my instinct tells me he did, partly because I remember him reaching out to take condoms + before we left the party i said we have to use condoms and he said definitely, that's not a question. He also made sure I really consented to sex. the next morning, I was nervous about having given unprotected fellatio. he said there's little to worry for oral, but emphasised for intercourse it's necessary to protect. We did not have anal sex. Felt he was a trustable person.
- I am on SSRIs for anxiety. I struggle w health anxiety.
- I happened to have a scheduled gynae appt the next day for follow up on LEEP procedure. Tests showed I cleared hpv 16 but still have other high risk types, and also now have ureaplasma.
- my last ex was diagnosed hiv+ from a previous r/s. I dated him for a few years, had only protected sex even when he was undetectable. we have no contact since 2024, my 4th gen hiv test in July 2025 was negative. I feel there are gaps in his story (he only revealed after we broke up that he was infected from a woman who frequented drug fuelled sex parties, yet I read that F to M transmission is not common.) As a result I catastrophise and wonder if my ONS is also untruthful.
- I'm worried about what I read on multiple credible sites like Stanford that emphasise that transmission can happen in only 1 exposure.
- I'm planning to get tested in 3 more weeks including chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hiv and syphilis. My last tests in july 2025 were all negative. this encounter is the only potentially risky exposure since then. What should I do? Is my worry founded?
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
6 hours ago
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Welcome to the forum and thanks for your confidence in our services. I'm happy to help.
You provide lots of detail about this exposure and other circumstances. Putting it all together, you were at very low risk for HIV and almost certainly not infected. It is reasonable for you to be tested for HIV, even though the risk was zero or close to it: reassurance alone is always a valid reason for HIV testing and undoubtedly a negative test result would be very reassuring for you. Alternatively, you might speak again with your partner and ask him to be retested: if he tests negative for HIV (as expected), you will know you were not exposed.
Your concern about unprotected fellatio is misplaced. Of course it is true that a single event can transmit HIV, but that truth says nothing about the actual risk level. Even with active untreated HIV, the average risk for a single episode of receptive oral sex has been estimated (by CDC) to be one chance in 10,000. That's equivalent to giving BJs to infected men once daily for 27 years before virus transmission would be likely. And based on what you know about your recent partner, it Is very unlikely he has it.
Ureaplasma is entirely normal in the genital tract. You did not need testing for it and the positive result should be ignored. This can be a confusing topic, in part because beliefs and attitudes about ureaplasma vary around the world. But the large majority of true STI experts is that it doesn't matter, does no harm, and does not require treatment.
You don't say exactly when the exposure happened. Do you mean testing 3 weeks after exposure or 3 weeks from now? Three weeks is longer than necessary for some STIs and not nearly long enough for syphilis. Gonorrhea/chlamydia testing is valid any time 3-5 days after exposure; and you could have a conclusive HIV RNA PCR test 11 days after the event. Syphilis is almost as unlikely as HIV, but if you want the reassurance of a test result, it needs to be at least 6 weeks after exposure.
In summary: Nearly zero risk for HIV and very low for other STIs; see if your partner is willing to be retested; get tested yourself but with the timing I have suggested rather than 3 weeks.
I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.
HHH, MD
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30 minutes ago
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Thank you very much, doctor handsfield. Really appreciate your help and assurance. Here are my clarifications and follow up questions:
- the potential exposure was 8-9 days ago. I'm mainly worried if I had unprotected vaginal sex without remembering, due to my patchy memory from alcohol (mentioned in 1st paragraph in previous post, sharing this in hopes no info was missed out - sorry, im quite an anxious person). I was especially worried when I read here that just once is enough for unprotected vaginal sex to transmit hiv: stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-conditions/sexual-and-reproductive-health/hiv-aids/causes/risk-of-exposure.html
- may i know why you believe i have zero to very low risk?
- is my ex's story plausible? (Being suspicious about his truthfulness has made me hypervigilant)
- do I have to tell future partners about having high risk (non-wart causing) hpv?
- I believe I might already have hsv although never had outbreaks or tests done. I am curious though if it is necessary to disclose to others given the ubiquity of hsv 1 and 2?
- the gynae prescribed me antibiotics for ureaplasma - should I take them? My digestion always suffers after antibiotics and I've been having poor gut health for a long time and had recurrent UTI last year which caused me to take antibiotics a lot. Other than ureaplasma, is there any other bacterium (e.g. trich) if found in my STI tests, that I can avoid antibiotics for? Does this also mean I should not having to test for ureaplasma or trich in future and just stick to Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hiv, Syphilis, and pap smear + hpv?
- can I get all the tests 6 weeks after this exposure for definitive results? Let's say i do have an asymptomatic STI, will 6 weeks be too long a time to wait?
Again a thousand thank yous Dr.
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
3 minutes ago
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Why no risk? Didn't you read my reply above? It's because there is little chance a partner like your has HIV, and because if he did, the transmission risk is under one chance in thousands maybe millions.
In the US and other industrialized countries. the large majority of men acquired the infection by sex with other men or by shared drug injection equipment. But of course I have no way of knowing the truth of your former partner's comment about how he was infected.
Whether or not to inform partners about HPV exposures has no straightforward answer: sometimes yes, sometimes no. But most partners would expect to be informed if they had had sex with someone known to have active HPV at the time. Past infections, not so much.
We never tell users to not follow their doctors' advice or prescriptions. But if you were to put it in personal terms -- e.g. if you were my daughter -- I would tell her not to take the treatment.
The only standard, regularly advised STI tests are for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, HIV and (for women only) trichomonas. All other tests simply are unnecessary or are so often unreliable or wrong that it's best to avoid them.
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