Welcome to the forum. Thanks for your confidence in our services.
I'm sorry to hear you are under such stress about HIV. In view of your sexual lifestyle, of course the risk of HIV isn't zero. However, it is very low. There are two main facts that should help reassure you. First, in the US (and most industrialized countries), HIV remains rare in heterosexual men, no matter how sexually active they are (with women) -- especially if they are not also injection drug users. So the odds are strong that none of your recent partners has HIV. Second, the average male to female HIV transmission risk, should one of your partners be infected, is around once for every 1,000 unprotected vaginal sex events. So even with several such events, the possibility you have HIV is very low.
I probably could reassure you more if you would like to specify the "extremely common STI" you had recently. I'm sort of guessing chlamydia or HPV, because of their great frequency in women your age. Having any STI statistically raises the risk of having HIV, so you were wise to be tested -- but the elevated chance for chlamydia and HPV is very low.
In answer to your closing questions, presence or absence of symptoms doesn't mean much in regard to predicting HIV test results. It's good you have no symptoms like sore throat, fever, lymph node enlargements, or skin rash, but it doesn't have much bearing on the chance you have HIV.
It rarely takes two weeks to receive HIV test results, but the reasons usually turn out to be the time specimen transport to the lab, testing delays, and further delay in reporting the results. It doesn't usually imply a positive test result. In fact, the opposite is probably true: most labs don't get very many HIV positives, and then they do their systems typically rev up to get the word to the testing source and patient as fast possible. If your result were positive, I would expect you would have heard well before now. That said, it would be reasonable to contact the pharmacy and ask what's going on.
A final factoid that may help reassure you: In the 15 years of this and our preceding forum at MedHelp.com, with thousands of questions from persons worried about HIV exposures and possible infection, not one has yet turned out to have acquired HIV. You are not likely to be the first! If and when that finally happens, we expect it to be from a truly high risk exposure, such as unprotected anal sex with a known infected partner. (A recent question concerns exactly that scenario. We're waiting to hear the HIV test result.)
By the way, I hope you also were tested (or retested) for common, treatable STIs like gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. You're at much higher risk for these than for HIV. I would also urge you to get into the condom habit -- as well as perhaps being more selective than you have been to date about who your sex partners are.
I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.
HHH, MD
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