Welcome to the Forum.  I'll be glad to comment and hope that you'll find my comments helpful.  Let me set the stage by reminding you that statistically it is quite unlikely that a latinex woman in New York will have HIV and, even if she did have untreated HIV, 99.9% of unprotected vaginal sexual exposures will NOT lead to infection.  Further, as you point out, symptoms are a poor indicator of the likelihood of HIV.  In addition, the sorts of symptoms you describe are not those which might be encountered in early HIV- headache is quite non-specific and both the red spots you noted on your hands and the bruise-like above your eyebrow do not raise concern about HIV-related problems. 

I would suggest however that rather than wait more than a week to test, I would advise you to go to a local public health clinic or other location where testing is available and get tested at this time.  Using current combination HIV antigen/antibody tests, test results are entirely conclusive at any time more than 6 weeks after and exposure.  In your case, when you test, I anticipate that your test results will be negative.

I hope that this response is helpful.  Take care.  Happy New Year.  EWH

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Happy new year thank you for such a timely response,  I usually get tested once a year but am a condom user 99.9% of the time, this go around has been tough to grapple with due to so much misleading information online, one article says bruising is a symptom of HIV, or article says it isn’t, one article says HIV rashes itch another doesn’t —- the only answers I really can trust are when you or Dr. Hansfield answer. Since this has happened it seems like everyday I wake up with something new to zero in on, I’ve attached a picture of my foot, I don’t know if that is proper protocol and I apologize if not, https://imgur.com/Fac4pxl, for the most part I’ve suffered from random little red spots from socks or tight shoes but then these two little marks appear and I just go down a dark hole. Sorry if I’m rambling Doc.  I would get tested sooner but prefer to do it at my physician, I was thinking about buying a home test, even with the statistics in my favor I’m very scared, I spend hours refreshing this girls social media daily and she seems to be living life just fine while my past 3 months have been hell. Thanks for your ear doc 

thanks for the additional information.  It's clear that this episode, perhaps in part related to the change in the way she has been interacting with you have knocked you off course a bit.  In such cases, the internet is not your friend and will all too often mislead you.  Because it is unfiltered, much of what is on the internet is out of date, taken out of context or just plain wrong.  In addition, because HIV effects people in so many ways and because there is so much interest, there are many accounts in which the totally coincidental occurrence of something unrelated to HIV is seen in a person who also happens to have HIV and is mis-identified as a "sign of HIV.  The internet is full of these false relationships.  As I said before, the things you described are not at all typical of HIV.  OTOH, you are probably looking at yourself far more closely than you have in the past and noting things that you would have ignored or placed no importance to if you had seen them at another time.  Please try not to worry.  Your likelihood of having HIV is minuscule. 

I understand your desire to test with your own doctor but will again will encourage you to arrange to test sooner than later- to let these concerns go on longer than they need to is just hard on you.  A home test may provide useful information as well since if any other the symptoms you describe were due to HIV, the home test would be positive.

We do not look at pictures on our site because we have learned that they rarely if ever help and are often misleading.  Foot lesions however would not be a typical manifestation of HIV.

Hope this helps. EWH

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Good morning thank you, I just landed back in my home state and have a doctors appointment tomorrow at 11:15 AM, I know I’m only allowed two responses but was wondering if you could keep this open so I could report back to you

Oh I forgot to ask can I ask my PCP to get the results back faster than a week? Usually it takes them 7 days 

Doc!!! I’m negative!!!! THANK GOD 

Sorry for the delayed response.  OTOH, I'm glad you were able to get your results and trust that now, with negative results, you will be able to take your concerns and move forward without concern.  I suspect that the things you have been noting are in no way related to the encounter that you described and reflect hyper-vigilance on your part. 

Much of what you have already said about the stigma and widespread misunderstanding regarding HIV is true.  I trust that with that intellectual level of insight, along with any information that I or your own doctor have provided will help you to move forward and get past this related to future relationships and partners.  Take care

This thread will be closed shorty.  EWH

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