PLEASE do not delete this message. For the 1st time in over 1 year I had unprotected vaginal sex with my wife. I purposely did not fully ejaculate in her but I am sure that I did pre-cum in her. I guess the reason all of the Hiv fear rushed back to me is that my wife has the flu now (a couple days later-we had sex). Also my baby (who is 8 months old and breast feeds from my wife about 3-4 times a day), seemed to be irritated by her tongue. I looked at it and it was very white and had some, what appeared to be, geographic spots on the back of her tongue. This is, and has been, the condition of my tongue since last January 2002, after the intial sickness that I experienced. PLEASE help me with advice! If I have some sickness(concerned Hiv) that is one thing, now I am very scared that my wife and daughter may be at risk. Is this normal tongue condition for my wife. I forgot to mention also she had green stool last nite. The reason I was scared to see that is because when I was that sick lst year, I had bout's of green stool also. PLEASE do not ignore me! I am scared and cannot sleep! My wife talked to me and she said that she is nervous and I am very nervous. The Hiv exposure that I had and got so sick with what the E-Room Doctor said, appeared to be ARS symptom's. The only 2 incident's that I had were 2 vaginal fingering incident's, with one incident having a little cut open, from the dry winter weather, on my middle finger, that I used for the fingering. I have had a few Hiv antibody tests & 1 pcr at apprxmte 3 weeks after the incident-that tested negative. The last Hiv 1& 2 test that I had was December 17th, 2002 (the last possible fingering incident happened on 12/27/01). I am so scared and confused now because I was so intially sick and now have never been the same, healthwise since. Do I have Hiv and if I happened to have Hiv, what would be the risk to my wife and baby from what we did this weekend? Thanks for replying. Is breastfeeding on the low risk side? Have there been many reported cases of babies becoming infected this way?

You are asking many questions at the same time and beginning to confuse the various issues. Also, I am not a medical doctor - and even if I were - I strongly encourage you to not seek medical advice about symptoms you and/or your wife may be having over the Internet. You need to visit and speak directly with a physician.

The basic issues are these: 1. If you are having unprotected vaginal or anal sex with people outside of your relationship you run the risk of acquiring HIV or other sexually transmitted infections from your partner(s).

2. If you and your wife are having unprotected sex then you run the risk of sharing with each other any sexually transmitted infections you may acquire outside of the relationship.

3. The symptoms that you have described are all non-specific. That is, they can be caused by a wide range of conditions. If any of them are persistent you need to consult directly with a physician to try and determine what might be the cause.

4. Breast feeding is a mode of transmission of HIV. For that to occur the woman who is breast feeding must be HIV infected herself.

5. HIV testing is generally believed to be conclusive by six months following possible infection with HIV.

It sounds like you are made easily anxious about these things. Please consult directly with a physician and/or an HIV/STD counselor.