Expert: Terry B - 2/22/2007

Question
i need your professional opinion on this matter becuase i need someone to tell me if im thinking rationally because i dont know anymore. i went to visit this girl awhile back ago. all we did was kiss there was no sex. she mite have bit my lip and got alittle of my blood in her mouth. a few weeks later her lymph nodes swelled up. i freaked out becuse i thought i gave her HIV. becuase thats one of the many symtoms of it.the last risky behavior that i was involved in with potential hiv exposure was with a women about 7 months ago. i went to go get tested and my results came back negative. that was at 4 months.it was an elisa test. then i had a rapid test at 5 months, negative. then i took another rapid test at 6 months. again negative. then i started thinking they were wrong so i got a elisa test again at 7 months and it came back negative.and im still worried i infected her with hiv. after writing all this down and readin it i kinda feel silly.    is it possible for the hiv antibodies never to show up if you have hiv? i read somewhere on the internet about how it can remain dormant for years? i was talking to this doctor on the internet about how you only the way to know for sure if you have hiv is to get  a PCR done to rule out those rare cases of poeple who never show hiv antibodies.have you heard anything about that?  i was thinkin about doing that but i read somewhere that theres a higher chance of false positives and i dont want to risk gettin a false positive becuas i know that would mentally mess me up even more. is my thinking still rational? thank you soo much for reading my question. i really appreciate.  

Answer
Dear Jon:

Peace and all good things to you.  AIDS is such a devastating disease in part because of silence - or in your case, partial information.  It is not a matter of irrationality; it is a matter of a justifiable fear (from your "last risky behavior"); but remember that swollen nodes are evidence of an infection, and there are many other infections besides HIV.

In order to research before answering your question, I went to two sites I highly recommend to you: www.thebody.com and www.cdc.gov.  These sites have a wealth of information on HIV/AIDS, and after checking there, I am more confident of what I suspected in the first place.  

Repeated ELISA testing at 6 and 7 months from exposure virtually assures you are not infected with HIV.  This assumes you are in otherwise decent health (your immune system is not horribly impaired).

The chances of a "false negative" - meaning you are infected but test results say you are not - are less than .0001% from what I have read.  Having more than one test come back negative reduces the chances further.

So, no, I would not recommend the more expensive PCR or p24 antigen testing, as you are right in the risk of "false positive" - results which would suggest you are infected when in reality you are not.

Have a great life.

Terry