Hi I have been marry for 19 yrs now I gave blood donation and found out I was hiv pos.I havnt been with anyone else only my wife she got tested came out neg. So can this have been in my body for 20yrs or less that. I got operated on my gall bladder 2 yrs ago . I can even think if something happen there.

Hello,

If indeed you've had no HIV-exposure risk over the past 19 years, your chance of being HIV infected today and not realizing it (not having symptoms) would be so remote that it's essentially nonexistent. The HIV-screening tests performed at blood donation sites are designed to protect the blood supply, not diagnose HIV disease. The sensitivity of the screening tests at blood donation centers is set such that they don't miss any true infections. However, because of this extremely sensitive testing mechanism they will capture some false-positive results. That means you could test HIV positive on this type of test, even though you are in reality not HIV infected. Your notification from the blood donation site is not a diagnosis. Rather it's a statement that for whatever reason your blood tested positive and you need additional tests to ascertain if indeed this is a false positive (highly likely in your case) or a true positive. Your private medical doctor or any HIV-testing center can perform the appropriate tests to quickly ascertain your true HIV status. Read through the testimonials in the archives of this forum. We have an entire chapter on blood donation as well as a chapter on HIV testing. You should find this information reassuring.

I'm here if you need me, but I strongly doubt you will! Good luck!

Dr. Bob