[Question #1621] worried advice needed
98 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
98 months ago
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98 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
98 months ago
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I'm sorry you are continuing to worry so much about HIV. You are not infected. Indeed, there are no perfect tests and the research on these tests show that somewhat less than 1 in 1000 persons with HIV are missed by current 4th generation tests. You however had not 1 but 3 negative tests at times when these tests provide reliable results. If you were infected, the infection would not have been missed three times You need to believe your test results.
The tests would be accurate even if there was "something" wrong with your immune systems, as well as if you had prostate cancer.
Your abnormal liver function tests are non-specific, as are your wife's. They could have been caused by any number of non-STI community acquired viral infections.
I do not doubt that your symptoms are real, but I also am confident that they were not due to HIV. If you are recovering, you may never know what caused your illness. Alternatively, if your symptoms continue, your focus on HIV (which has been effectively ruled out) may be interfering with finding out what is causing them.
I hope these further comments will allow you to move forward from your unwarranted concerns that you acquired HIV from the sexual misstep you have described. EWH
98 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
98 months ago
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If you test again at 10 months and have not had additional potential exposures since the interaction you described in your initial post, your result will be the same as before, once again demonstrating that you did not catch HIV from that exposure. There is no scientific or medical rationale for further testing however. Remember Einstein's statement that one definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and to expect different results.
As this is my third reply to your questions, as described in the Introductory materials for our web site, this thread will be closed later today. Please note as well that the forum does not permit repeated anxiety driven questions by the same users. This will have to be your last one; future new questions on this topic will be deleted without reply and without refund of your posting fee. This policy is based on compassion, not criticism, and is designed to reduce temptations to keep paying for questions with obvious answers; because experience shows that continued answers tends to simply prolong such anxieties, when the real answer normally should be professional counseling; and because such questions have little educational value for other users, one of the forum's main purposes. I trust you will understand. EWH