Good morning  doctors,

Im a white heterosexual Male in my late 20's, who had a laps of judgement.  About 2 months ago I met a white female in her late 20's online through an adult hookup site,  which I never do.  I asked her prior to sex if she was clean of sti's which she insisted she was.

We had protected vaginal sex with a latex condom for about 10 minutes. The slipped a bit but the tip and most of the base of my penis was covered, and I didn't notice any rips when I removed it.  We also did alot of grinding genital to genital before penetration.   I'm concerned that she might have been a higher risk individual since she wanted to do unprotected anal, whichI smartly declined and that she was from Orlando which has a higher HIV population.

About 14 days after the event I traveled home for a week via plane.  At about the two week mark from when we had sex on a Tuesday i started to get a mild sore throat and a strong headache, which lasted for 2-3 days.  I dont remember running a fever at all, but I was able to meet up with friends and go out and do things.  On that Thursday night I developed the chills which resulted in my feeling very cold and shivering uncontroabfor about an hour, then they stopped.  The next morning I woke up fine with no symptoms.

Should I be concerned at all about this event?  I asked her agian about if she had any sti's a few weeks ago and she agian told me no, but I'm not sure if she's been tested.  I know that relying on symptoms along is not smart, but this event just keeps sticking in my head.  In your opinion should I get tested for hiv?  I was last tested about 6 months ago when I got into a new relationship.

Welcome to the Forum and thanks for your confidence in our service.  I'll be glad to comment.  The encounter you describe was safe sex with virtually no risk for any STIs, including HIV.  Your partner said she was negative and a condom was used.  Further HIV in particular is quite uncommon among women, even in the Orlando area.  I presume that your flu-like illness two weeks after the event was coincidence and not related to the encounter you describe.  Good job on declining unprotected anal.  

Having said that, in the spirit of full I must tell you that the so-called Acute Retroviral Syndrome (ARS) of recently acquired HIV typically occurs at 1-3 weeks after an exposure and is characterized by sore throat, fever, muscle aches and pains, typically occurring together and lasting  several days.  When flu-like illnesses of this sort have been studies, 99% of persons with the "classical" syndrome do not have HIV but instead have some other illness such as influenza.  Given the nature of your partner and the use of a condom (as long as it covered the head of your penis, you were protected) I would not worry about this encounter and do not see a need for testing.  

If you feel you need testing, all testing is conclusive using current tests at 6 weeks after an exposure.  In addition, as an FYI, when people have symptoms they are typically positive on combination antigen/antibody HIV tests.  Thus if you did test now (again, I do not feel this is needed) and the result is negative, you can be entirely confident that your sore throat and other symptoms were not due to HIV.

I hope these answers are helpful.  EWH