[Question #8397] Worried
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45 months ago
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My wife recently got a fingernail infection which was diagnosed in hospital as paronychia and so she was prescribed antibiotics which did not help. Doctor referred her last week to a specialist that she met today and who has concluded that it is an infectious disease and referred her to an infectious disease doctor for further test. This is driving me crazy as I was not very faithful to
My wife several years ago and had condom protected sex with several women. Now, I am extremely worried that my wife’s infection could be as a result of hiv infection. Other than this nail infection, both of us have been healthy aside from the usual seasonal colds, etc. We even caught COVID last year and beat it. Could this really be an hiv infection? Advise, please.
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
45 months ago
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Welcome to our forum and thanks for your confidence in our advice. I hope that the information I am about to provide to you will relieve you of the unwarranted concern you have that you may have acquired HIV and transmitted it to your wife and that her paronychia is related to your previous missteps.
Irrespective of who the woman you had sex with in the past were, the likelihood that they had HIV was very very low. Here in North America substantially less than 1% of women, even commercial sex workers and women with multiple sex partners, have HIV. Further even a totally unprotected sexual encounter with an untreated, HIV-infected woman carries a risk of infection of less than 1/10 of 1% per episode of intercourse. Further, you note that the encounters you had were condom protected. Condoms work and are highly effective at HIV prevention. If you’re condoms appeared in tact following your encounters, they were. When condoms fail they break wide-open leaving no doubt that they had broken.
Be confident that you did not acquire HIV as a result of the missteps you describe. If you remain concerned, get tested for HIV. The results will be reliable and I am confident you will find that you are negative and thus, could not have infected your wife.
Paronychia can be difficult to treat. They often require drainage as well as antibiotics in order to be cured.
I hope this information and reassurance is helpful to you. Please don’t worry. EWH
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45 months ago
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Dr. H,
Many thanks for the explanation and reassurance. But isn’t paronychia as well as similar fungal nail infections a tell-tale symptom of either chronic or advanced hiv? Could such infections be the first and only symptoms of hiv? Wouldn’t such infections indicate a seriously harmed immune system and so would usually occur in advanced hiv along with many other more common hiv sumptoms? Isn’t referral to an infectious disease doctor always for something like suspected paronychia indicative of suspicion by the doctor of a systemic ailment?
Thanks
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
45 months ago
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No, paronychia are not associated with HIV in any way. They may be due to either bacteria or fungi.
Referral to an ID specialist is not unusual. EWH
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45 months ago
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Dr. H, would your positive view regarding my situation change if my wife’s diagnosis turned out to be proximal subungual onychomycosis? Would such an infection be a tell-tale symptom of either chronic symptomatic or advanced hiv? Could such an infection be the first and only symptom of chronic symptomatic or advanced hiv? Wouldn’t such an infection indicated a seriously harmed immune system and so would usually occur in advanced hiv disease along with many other symptoms? If yes, what might such symptoms be? I am very worried about the ID doctor referral and so speculating about worst possible diagnoses. Please, help me by addressing my questions. Many thanks.
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
45 months ago
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Absolutely not. You need to move forward from here paranoid concerns that you had acquired HIV and transmitted it to your wife. If you choose not to believe the advice I have provided, I suggest you test for HIV to prove to yourself that you were not infected. I am confident that if you test, the test results will show that you are not infected. EWH ---