[Question #9161] ARS Symptoms
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35 months ago
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Have had unprotected heterosexual (non anal) encounters with several college girls age 18-22 in Mexico and like three months ago an intense itching begun at night that did not let me sleep, next day woke up with a rash in my back and belly, itching non stop, also tingling in hands and feet and tiredness, my doctor only prescribed an antihistamine called ebastine that caused me feeling drousy, the symptoms lasted for about a week or a week and a half.
Could this be ARS symptoms?
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35 months ago
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Also forgot to mention no fever no sore throat no other symptoms
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
35 months ago
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Welcome to our forum. Thank you for your questions. I’ll be glad to comment. Your timeline is a little bit hard for me to follow. Was your encounter with these three women three months ago? Or did you test three months after the encounter?
Either way, these were low risk exposures. HIV rates and women are relatively low and, even if one of these women did happen to have HIV, the likelihood of acquiring HIV from a single sexual exposure is worse than one infection in more than 1000 exposures. In other words for each exposure, even if your partner had untreated HIV infection, there was a 99.9% chance that you would not become infected.
Not everyone who requires HIV experiences the ARS. The symptoms you describe however are not suggestive of the syndrome. Fever is an essential part of the ARS and is typically accompanied by a severe sore throat and muscle or joint pains. Only a relatively small proportion of people with the ARS develop skin rash. The symptoms you describe do not suggest the ARS to me.
I hope this information is helpful to you. Please let me know about the timing of your encounter and your testing and I will continent further. EWH
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35 months ago
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The encounters were several young women over the course of several months, for real can pinpoint the timing, this anxiety just hit me since ive read that a rash is part of ars symptoms and since ive been having unprotected sex just ocurred to me that i may have had ars, that is why i have not tested, but i will, thank you for your advise is very reasurring since its scary for me right now to take the test
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
35 months ago
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Thank you for the additional information. It is unlikely that the rash you experienced was the ARS or in any way related to the low risk exposures that you described. If it has been more than six weeks since your last exposure, and the fourth generation, combination HIV antigen/antibody test with conclusively rule out any possibility of HIV.
Take care. EWH
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35 months ago
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Thank you dr hook