I made the mistake of having unprotected Vag&oral sex with female (I'm maleuncircumsized). This took place 11/6/25 for a few hours. I know 4thGen tests aren't conclusive until wk6, but on the 14th I developed a scratchy throat, nausea, minor diarrhea, and some minor joint pain (no fevers), and a rash on my hands or could just be dry skin. I took a 4thgen test on the 16th, negative, 20th neg, and yesterday the 25th neg. My symptoms subsided over past weekend, but after today I woke up for work and my throat is scratchy again, and minor gastro issues, but no bowel movements. I have another test coming up in the next few weeks, the 6wk mark. My question is: Do my symptoms sound like ARS symptoms? and also if I felt better during the test I took yesterday the 25th and my scratchy throat and gastro issues started again 21 hours later after that test would that test of been positive if the symptoms were due to ars? I'm worried that if I waited today to test while feeling bad instead of yesterday, the outcome would of been different. Meaning do you think the test missed a potential positive result since I felt better yesterday during the test. My throat isn't really sore, just scratchy and uncomfortable. Currently my only symptoms are my throat, and gastro issues. I believe I read somewhere before that not everyone who contracts hiv goes through ARS, but if they experience true ars; fever will always be one of the symptoms. 

Welcome to our Forum and thanks for your questions.  The encounter you described was low risk.  Less than 1% of women have HIV and even if your partner has untreated HIV the of infection from the activities you describe, on average, is less  the onset of ARS symptoms is typically between 11 and 21 days following acquisition of infection.  than 1 in 2000. Further, the onset of your symptoms is early for the HIV ARS which occurs in about half of persons who acquire HIV.  ---

Thank you for the reply. So even though I felt better during the latest test and the very next day not even a full 24hrs later; I started feeling crummy again with my throat; my test would have been positive even though I started feeling bad again the next day after that latest test? I forgot to mention I've been having headaches, too. I don't if that changes anything or not.

Thanks for the additional information.  I’m sorry to hear that you’ve not recovered fully and hope that your symptoms will improve soon.  As I explained above, you can be entirely confident that your past or present symptoms are not due to HIV.  Your tests prove that.---