[Question #8826] HIV test and can I continue having unprotected sex with my partner?
39 months ago
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Hello Doctors, I hope that you are having a wonderful day. I like to apologize for my long question. I tried to make my question as short as possible but I believe that every piece of information here is important, so I would really appreciate your time and effort in helping me with this case. I am a 26 year old male (soon to be 27) who lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. About three years ago I visited a dental clinic for some tooth filling and while being there I noticed that one of the nurses was also responsible for dealing with the payments and reception job. While I handed her my credit card, I noticed that she had some blood on her gloves. This caused me to get skeptical of the overall hygiene of the clinic. Regardless of that I did the dental work and tried to ease my mind. Since that time I have been to the same clinic a few more times because I totally forgot the blood on gloves incident. Fast forward to current month which is May 2022, I had to visit a dentist for some dental work. Unfortunately since I had forgot about the incident, I visited the same clinic. After the dental process was done, there was some bleeding in my mouth and I went back home. For some reason I started worrying what if they are not following the disinfection guidlines and the tools they use are not clean. I had to visit the clinic twice more and upon my second visit I realized that while doing dental work, they change the "bur" (which is the drill that they use to shape teeth). So basically each patient gets a new bur and the previous drill bit will go to the trash. I also realized that the suction tip (saliva ejector) is also changed between patients. Knowing these calmed my mind a bit and I got more relaxed. I went home and after a few days I had to visit the clinic one last time, this time when I reached there the dentist was already a bit preoccupied with some conversations and he was shouting at some people over the phone and behaving unprofessional in my opinion. I tried to ignore the situation, he came and attached a dental crown on my teeth and used the saliva ejector and a dental bur(drill) for the job. I did not see him changing the saliva ejector tip this time so this caused me to wonder if he had changed the saliva ejector. This has made me all worried because of a few reasons: firstly the blood on glove incident, second the unprofessional behavior of the dentist and lastly MOST IMPORTANTLY because very recently I have realized that when dentists use the drill(bur), some splashed blood gets stuck inside the rotary motor of the device, and although they change the bur(drill tip) between patients, but it is unclear if my dentist has disinfected the actual motor itself or not. I am not sure if this is part of the CDC guidline or not.., ALSO I have also read some scientific articles that mention: when a saliva ejector is used, the saliva and blood and other debri is sucked inside the machine and usually dentists do not disinfect the whole tube in between patiens, (they just change the suction head tip), It is important to mention that Backflow is really common within these devices and it might happen even if the patient is unaware of it, Backflow means when the previous patient's dental material (saliva, blood, debris) which are stuck in the suction device, flow in the opposite direction and enter the new patient's mouth. For all of the mentioned reasons I am worried if there is a chance that I could be infected with any STD, STI. I am hesitant to continue unprotected sex with my partner because I do not want to put her at risk. Do you recommend me to do an HIV test? Or any other tests?
39 months ago
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
39 months ago
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39 months ago
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39 months ago
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![]() |
H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
39 months ago
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39 months ago
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
39 months ago
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