I had sex about 4-5 weeks ago with a massage therapist, she admitted that she only had sex twice in her lifetime. for a minute or 2, she rubs her vagina to my penis (but not the tip). After that, i put on a condom and then sex. Therefore i checked myself with a 3rd gen fingerprick hiv rapid test. the result was negative after i saw 15-30 ro 1 hour after the test (the package said dont see results after 20 mins). But When i wanted to throw out the test the next day (approx 36 hours), i saw a line on the T side. I saw some people also commented the same. i was panicking and i did 2 more tests as i have stock and they turned out neg after 20 mins, and apprntly some people have the same case as i had. Therefore, is it a false negative? why is the results of the tests can changes to positive after the max reading time? and will it be conclusive if i do the test after 8 weeks?

First, the exposure described carried little if any risk for HIV. The virus is not known to be transmissible by penile-vaginal contact without penetration. I can't say the risk was truly zero, but even if your partner has HIV, there was probably under one chance in a million it could have been transmitted from the exposure you have described. Had you asked ahead of time, I would have recommended against testing. (More about this below.)

Looking over your five forum questions over the past few months, you have had entirely low risk if not quite zero risk exposures for HIV. Rather than testing after every such event, it would be smarter to just get tested on a regular schedule, such as every 6-12 months. At those times have a urine test for gonorrhea and chlamydia and blood tests for HIV and syphilis. But if the kinds of contact you have had continues unchanged, it really makes no sense to be tested every time.

I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

1. Do you ever seen or heard any case of rapid test that changes from nonreactive to reactive outside the max reading time? Do false positives from the HIV screening is due to this or this case is counted as invalid result?

2. supposedly for people who have been exposed for more than 12 weeks, does the T line on the rapid test occurs at the same time as the C? or the C line will come first and then the T? if so, is it still on the reading time?

3. Do you think i should do more testing? i have observed for the past 2 weeks (week 2-4 after exposure), i only develop a diarrhea (for 1 day), and some skin rash that might be due to humidity. No fever, no muscle aches, no massive sore throat.

Thank you doctor

1. I have never had a patient or other experience with trying to interpret late readings of these tests. There are no scientific reports that late positive results proved to be true. I imagine it might happen if read only slightly late, say at 30 instead of 20 minutes. Beyond that, I'm sure it never happens. Given your apparent temptation to keep looking, I strongly recommend you discard the test as soon as you read the negative result at the time specified in the instructions (or even destroy it so you cannot even be tempted).---
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