Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I just wanted to say how educational this thread is! I also had no idea you could go decades without realizing you had HIV (I thought you'd start getting very sick after a few months) and didn't realize it was so hard to catch.
I don't actually think it's "asymptomatic." I was reading something once about an actor who had HIV (don't remember) and the biggest indicator that you need to get tested is that you have a flu that just does not let up for two or three weeks. Then after that you're pretty asymptomatic as long as you get treatment.
This is inaccurate. Early HIV infection is often, but not always, flu-like. That acute phase passes and being completely asymptomatic is normal in the chronic phase (which can go on for 10 years, regardless of treatment). When it progresses to AIDS, that’s when you get sick.
If you are treated early and the condition becomes a chronic illness, does that mean you never progress to AIDS? Or do infected individuals all eventually progress to having AIDS, but still the illness is managed? For example, is Magic Johnson or Greg Lougainus expected to never progress to AIDS because they were treated early on?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I just wanted to say how educational this thread is! I also had no idea you could go decades without realizing you had HIV (I thought you'd start getting very sick after a few months) and didn't realize it was so hard to catch.
I don't actually think it's "asymptomatic." I was reading something once about an actor who had HIV (don't remember) and the biggest indicator that you need to get tested is that you have a flu that just does not let up for two or three weeks. Then after that you're pretty asymptomatic as long as you get treatment.
This is inaccurate. Early HIV infection is often, but not always, flu-like. That acute phase passes and being completely asymptomatic is normal in the chronic phase (which can go on for 10 years, regardless of treatment). When it progresses to AIDS, that’s when you get sick.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I just wanted to say how educational this thread is! I also had no idea you could go decades without realizing you had HIV (I thought you'd start getting very sick after a few months) and didn't realize it was so hard to catch.
I don't actually think it's "asymptomatic." I was reading something once about an actor who had HIV (don't remember) and the biggest indicator that you need to get tested is that you have a flu that just does not let up for two or three weeks. Then after that you're pretty asymptomatic as long as you get treatment.
Anonymous wrote:I just wanted to say how educational this thread is! I also had no idea you could go decades without realizing you had HIV (I thought you'd start getting very sick after a few months) and didn't realize it was so hard to catch.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Not PP but just go to OB-GYN on your lunch break tomorrow or Friday. I'm pretty sure with modern technology they prick your finger and you get your answer a minute later.
Why give incorrect information?? If you go to the doctor they will draw blood and it will take several days to get results from the lab. If you do the home test or go to Whitman Walker Clinic in DC you will get a saliva test that will give you results in 20 minutes.
If OP is very anxious, she should get the home test ASAP.
It's not incorrect lol. There is a rapid test called Institest. They prick your finger and it takes a minute.
Anonymous wrote:OP I went through this. You know what it was? Anxiety that needed to be treated.
Let it go today. Test as soon as you get back. And then find a therapist you trust to work with on your health anxiety. Because even when this test comes back negative, you are just going to find something new to obsess over.
If you need a way to cope today and the next few days, I found this workbook helpful. Doing the exercises will feel better than spiraling out like you are now.
https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Health-Anxiety
Anonymous wrote:
Curious why you say a younger man is lower risk? I'd think men in their 40s+ (alive during AIDS crisis) would be less likely to have engaged in unsafe sex in their youth. (I know nothing about AIDS)
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Thank you. To answer your question I am in my late 20s.
That all makes sense and I appreciate the information. That would explain why I am not offered it annually - I do not meet any of those risk factors and I have actually never been pregnant, so it's never been offered to me at all.
That is what scares me. It sounds like since I am not considered "high risk," people don't see it as necessary, but I could have gotten it from a one-time thing five years ago and just have no idea.
OP, I didn't realize that was you asking. Sorry about that.
The place where your reasoning goes haywire is that it is like you are ignoring or not able to digest what the words "high risk" mean. You're not "not considered high risk" via a mistake on your health care providers' part leading to you not being testing and some horrible underlying fact going unnoticed. You are "not considered high risk" because you actually have not done things that put you in danger of contracting HIV.
There was a slogan in circulation when I was your age: HIV is hard to get. It was meant to calm down people who at that point were freaking out that they could get HIV from public restrooms and pools, but it was and is true across a wide range of activities, including heterosexual intercourse with a young man who is not an injection drug user and doesn't have sex with men.
To put this in the context of your anxiety: you are much, MUCH more likely to have contracted hepatitis B via the sex you had than to have gotten HIV that way. Hep B is 50-100 times more transmissible than HIV. Your mind is fastened to HIV for some reason, and it's not a reason that has anything to do with real analysis of risk. You have a contagion thing going here, a worry about pollution. That is anxiety, not your wise mind talking. Get better treatment for the anxiety.
Curious why you say a younger man is lower risk? I'd think men in their 40s+ (alive during AIDS crisis) would be less likely to have engaged in unsafe sex in their youth. (I know nothing about AIDS)
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Thank you. To answer your question I am in my late 20s.
That all makes sense and I appreciate the information. That would explain why I am not offered it annually - I do not meet any of those risk factors and I have actually never been pregnant, so it's never been offered to me at all.
That is what scares me. It sounds like since I am not considered "high risk," people don't see it as necessary, but I could have gotten it from a one-time thing five years ago and just have no idea.
OP, I didn't realize that was you asking. Sorry about that.
The place where your reasoning goes haywire is that it is like you are ignoring or not able to digest what the words "high risk" mean. You're not "not considered high risk" via a mistake on your health care providers' part leading to you not being testing and some horrible underlying fact going unnoticed. You are "not considered high risk" because you actually have not done things that put you in danger of contracting HIV.
There was a slogan in circulation when I was your age: HIV is hard to get. It was meant to calm down people who at that point were freaking out that they could get HIV from public restrooms and pools, but it was and is true across a wide range of activities, including heterosexual intercourse with a young man who is not an injection drug user and doesn't have sex with men.
To put this in the context of your anxiety: you are much, MUCH more likely to have contracted hepatitis B via the sex you had than to have gotten HIV that way. Hep B is 50-100 times more transmissible than HIV. Your mind is fastened to HIV for some reason, and it's not a reason that has anything to do with real analysis of risk. You have a contagion thing going here, a worry about pollution. That is anxiety, not your wise mind talking. Get better treatment for the anxiety.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Thank you. To answer your question I am in my late 20s.
That all makes sense and I appreciate the information. That would explain why I am not offered it annually - I do not meet any of those risk factors and I have actually never been pregnant, so it's never been offered to me at all.
That is what scares me. It sounds like since I am not considered "high risk," people don't see it as necessary, but I could have gotten it from a one-time thing five years ago and just have no idea.
OP, I didn't realize that was you asking. Sorry about that.
The place where your reasoning goes haywire is that it is like you are ignoring or not able to digest what the words "high risk" mean. You're not "not considered high risk" via a mistake on your health care providers' part leading to you not being testing and some horrible underlying fact going unnoticed. You are "not considered high risk" because you actually have not done things that put you in danger of contracting HIV.
There was a slogan in circulation when I was your age: HIV is hard to get. It was meant to calm down people who at that point were freaking out that they could get HIV from public restrooms and pools, but it was and is true across a wide range of activities, including heterosexual intercourse with a young man who is not an injection drug user and doesn't have sex with men.
To put this in the context of your anxiety: you are much, MUCH more likely to have contracted hepatitis B via the sex you had than to have gotten HIV that way. Hep B is 50-100 times more transmissible than HIV. Your mind is fastened to HIV for some reason, and it's not a reason that has anything to do with real analysis of risk. You have a contagion thing going here, a worry about pollution. That is anxiety, not your wise mind talking. Get better treatment for the anxiety.
Anonymous wrote:Thank you. To answer your question I am in my late 20s.
That all makes sense and I appreciate the information. That would explain why I am not offered it annually - I do not meet any of those risk factors and I have actually never been pregnant, so it's never been offered to me at all.
That is what scares me. It sounds like since I am not considered "high risk," people don't see it as necessary, but I could have gotten it from a one-time thing five years ago and just have no idea.