Please I ask you to read my post and consider it before dismissing it as another "worried well" poster. I have posted before so I will not go into all the details again, but I am very ill and afraid that I have HIV despite my negative antibody results so far. The pain in my upper right abdominal area is getting worse. My liver enzymes remain elevated now for better than 2 months. I have tested negative for Hep A,B and C and all other STDS but my upper right abdominal pains are getting more pronounced and intense. I also continue to get yeast infections in between my buttocks and a white coating on my tongue. My doctor did a CT scan and Ultrasound of my liver and said everything was okay but the pain is almost unbearable. I really believe that I have CMV Colitis. I have even had blood in my stool. I have tested negative for HIV out to 38 weeks after my risk but the liver pain and elevated enzymes as well as the other symptoms really have me thinking I am infected. Doctor, what do you suggest I do in these circumstances and is there any way what is happening is not HIV related? I have hit a brick wall with my family doctor and am seriously in pain. I sincerely and respectively need you help, thanks.

Hi,

"Believing" you have CMV colitis and actually having CMV colitis are two very different things. The same applies to HIV. Your repeatedly negative HIV tests out to 38 weeks are definitive, conclusive and WOO-HOO-able. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. HIV is not your problem. No way. No how. I can't diagnose the cause of your symptoms over the Internet. However, what I can do with great certainty is advise what's not causing them: it's not HIV. If your family doctor is unable to find an underlying cause for your symptoms, get a second opinion from an internal medicine physician (internist). If, following that second opinion, no underlying physical cause can be elucidated, you should be evaluated for possible psychosomatic illness. (This causes very real symptoms. Check out the archives for gazillions of examples.)

You need to stop chasing a disease (HIV) you could not possibly have. A negative HIV-antibody test outside the window period trumps symptoms each and every time.

Good luck. Feel better, OK?

Dr. Bob