[Question #670] Intense sore throat 2 days after unprotected cunnilingus & protected intercourse

101 months ago

Hello,

28 y/o male here. Last Thursday night (March 31), I hooked up with a woman and received oral from her and also gave her oral several times. Both were unprotected. We had sex a few times as well, but I wore a different condom each time. For 2 days after, I felt completely fine and healthy and am generally very healthy, but the morning of the 3rd day after the hookup, I woke up with a terrible sore throat, body aches, and a headache. I let that run it's course for 2 days, saw the doctor, because I thought it was strep, but it wasn't. Just a viral throat infection they said, and I have to let it run it's course. I'm paranoid from reading online that my terrible sore throat is related to that night I hooked up. It's been 1 week now since the hookup, but 5 days since I've been sick, and I still have a really bad sore throat.

Is there a chance my throat infection ( which I just snapped a photo of tonight and there's 3-4 medium sized red bumps at the back of my throat) is an STD/STI? If not, is it possible to just flat out get sick like I am from oral sex? I have no symptoms in my genital region, but I just find it very coincidental that I got sick a couple days later, especially since I'm pretty healthy and this just came out of nowhere.

I was reading online and there was a forum of people who were discussing painful strep throat like symptoms much the same that I'm experiencing after giving oral, and some said it was from an allergic reaction to whatever body or genital cleaners their partners were using. I don't know if this could be it? I've given two other women unprotected cunnilingus before but never had any trace of sickness after.

Also, one of the times we had sex and I finished inside her (with a condom on), I pulled out and the condom was still in her, but I pulled it out quickly. At the time I didn't see any semen come out of it, but is there a chance she could get pregnant from that? She's 42 if that helps.

101 months ago

I forgot to mention I developed pink eye and a dry cough 3 days after first getting sick with the the sore throat. Also, I had my tongue inside her vagina and my mouth was wide open during a lot of the oral I gave her.

Edward W. Hook M.D.

101 months ago

Welcome for the forum and thanks as well for the additional information- it may be a clue to what is going on. Congratulations on your consistent use of condoms for your genital sex- this will go a long way towards keeping you safe. Not all forms of sexual contact have equal risks for transmitting STIs. Genital-genital and ano-genital sex are the most efficient means of transmission from a biological perspective (i.e. transmission is most likely to occur) while among forms of oral sex performing fellatio on a partner has a small risk of transmission and receptive fellatio (i.e. receiving a blow job), cunnilingus and anilingus are quite unlikely to lead to infection. For HIV for instance, there are no reported cases that I am aware of in which cunnilingus or receptive fellatio from and infected partner have led to infection.

In addition, there are several reasons that the exposure you describe was low risk. Besides the information above, your partner was over the age of 40, an age when STIs are less common on average and you developed symptoms. Most oral STIs are asymptomatic and when typical STIs occur, they rarely cause symptoms until at least 2-3 days after the contact and sometimes considerably longer. The symptoms you describe sound like a flu-like illness of the sort that folks can get from day-to-day living or by kissing someone with a cold or other viral illness. One sort of virus in particular, the adenovirus is well known to cause the sort of illness you describe, including conjunctivitis. The sore throat and bumps in the back of your throat sound quite typical of a "usual", non-STI viral infection which you might have acquired even if you had not had sex with this person.

I hope this information is helpful to you. My suspicion that this is an STI is VERY low. If you are concerned, you could have a throat culture for gonorrhea but like your doctor, my guess is that you have had the bad luck to co-incidentally get a viral infection. Whether it is related to your recent hook-up is difficult to say. EWH

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