Hello Dr Bob

Thank you for answering previous question it brought me great relief. I have another question for you. My gp seems to be convinced that im infected with hiv considering my risk and my symptoms. So I went to see an infectious disease specialists her specialty was hiv. She ran several tests on me at 11.5 weeks. Cd4 was 850. Cbc normal, monocytes back down to 598, Wierd. Hiv rna non detected. She orderd a western blot because she said if my symptoms were from hiv then there's no reason why the 10 weeks antibody and rna test should be negative. So she said the western blot will sort out strains not covered by the Rna and antibody tests. Which also came back negative. Antibody negative. Now she said I am not infected and I can rest assured that my symptoms are from something else. But I am terrified that I am going to hurt someone else as my viral exhanthem and painful white tongue persist. Doc am I who hoo able. Or can I have a crf or somerhing that will make my window period longer because she was a sex worker and from vietnam crf a/e. Hopefully I hear from you soon thanks a lot Dr. Bob and if you could please post your charity link in your reply I would like to make a donation. Thanks

Hello,

Your general practitioner is unquestionably wrong. I agree with the infectious disease specialist. You are absolutely "WOO-HOO-able." HIV is not your problem. No way. No how. No additional HIV tests are warranted or recommended. Should you be concerned about "CRF a/e?" No, absolutely not. I don't agree with some of the logic used by your infectious disease specialist (for instance ordering an isolated Western Blot to "sort out strains not covered by the RNA and antibody tests"), but I certainly agree with her conclusion: You are conclusively HIV negative. Unfortunately, I cannot diagnose the cause of your symptoms over the Internet. However, I can with great certainly advise you what's not causing them: it's not HIV.

Thank you for your interest in The Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation. The foundation's Web site is www.concertedeffort.org.

Be well. Stop worrying. Start WOO-HOO-ing!

Dr. Bob

HIV Testing. Big mistake in San Fran Oct 18, 2009

Hello Dr Bob.

Hi im an east coast idiot who got alittle to excited in Cali and visited an asian mesage parlor and only possibly got hiv out of the 140 dollar experience. My question for you Dr. Bob is I had protected vaginal intercourse with the lady but somehow contracted chlamydia. The condom didn't look broken but I didn't investigate to hard as I made a b line for her shower and used her bar of soap to clean my tally wacker. Another mistake. So 5 weeks later I developed small pink dot on my abdoman. 6 weeks later my tongue began to burn and taste like metal. 8 weeks post I went to the gp he diagnosed me with a viral exanthem on abdoman maculopapular. And a yeast problem of the tongue with unknown causes. My blood work was norma except absolute monocytes were high 998. Hiv 1/2 and all other stds negative. So my main question is if my symptoms developed at 6 weeks would the hiv antibody and rna test I took at 10 weeks be positive if those symptoms were indeed from hiv. I will be getting my final 3 month test in 2 weeks. I just would really like your insight please. I can't wait to hear from you and I think you are a really cool down to earth guy. Thank you

Response from Dr. Frascino

Hi,

An Asian "mesage" parlor? Hmm. OK, if you say so.

Protected sex is indeed protected, assuming you used the latex or polyurethane condom properly and it did not break.

Chlamydia is much easier to contract than HIV.

A negative HIV-antibody test plus an undetectable quantitative HIV plasma RNA viral load test are strongly indicative that you are HIV negative. I'm extremely confident your definitive three-month HIV-antibody test will also be negative.

Good luck.

Dr. Bob