HIV: Early Flu Like Symptoms

Dear Ask The Doctor: I have had unproteced sex once and given and recived oral sex twice each. After the first time I had unprocted sex about 2 years ago. I injured my leg running and it took months to heal. I then started to get pain in the other leg that has gone. I now have weaknes in my leg (this has been confirmed by a sports massarger) Then after swimming a few days ago I now have a pain in one of my hips. Combined with this I had a cold (green snot, through out the day) earlier this year, now I only get green snot first thing in the moring. I read that musscle weakness and a cold you can not shake are symptoms of hiv

Dear Holly: Many people do not develop symptoms after they first get infected with HIV. Others have a flu-like illness within several days to weeks after the exposure to the virus. They can complain of fever, headache, tiredness, and enlarged lymph nodes in the neck. These symptoms usually disappear within a few weeks. After that, the person feels normal and has no symptoms. This asymptomatic phase often lasts for years. The progression of disease is different among individuals. This state may last from a few months to more than 10 years. Even though the person has no symptoms, he or she is contagious and can pass HIV to others.

It is not likely that the symptoms that you described could be due to HIV infection, but it is strongly recommended that you get tested if you are in doubt, because you were engaged in high risk behaviors in the past. Testing for HIV is a two-step process. First, an inexpensive screening test is done (saliva it is just 20 minutes to get results). If that test is positive, a second test (Western blot) is done to confirm the result.