2 March 2010

Dear all.  First of all thanks to all of you for the great work you are doing.  My english is not good.  I am 34 yrs married male.  After 8 years of my routine married life I decided to do something different & I dated one gay male who I met on the net.  He performed oral sex on me for less than one minute; in fact I was really very tense and felt guilty as I was cheating on my wife & I was also worried about HIV infection.  I had pain in my penis and was not fully erect. My male partner was trying to give me a hardon by handjob & suddenly he took my penis in his mouth & started to give me oral.  I immediately asked him to stop, released my semen out of his mouth, urinated & then washed my penis.  This whole exposure lasted less than one minute.  I checked there was no blood on my penis but i am not sure about his oral health.  He said later on that there was no blood in his mouth, no mouth ulcers, and no bleeding gums.  There were no cuts on my penis either.  After this I asked him about his HIV status & he said he is negative and although he is having multiple relationships, he always practices safe sex.  I am doubtful about this as he is always online on gay dating sites.  This is the only one homosexual experience in my life.  80 days after this incident, I tested negative for HIV1 & HIV 2, but my questions are: 1) has anyone ever been infected by insertive oral sex? 2) I got tested by using the Tridot method; how reliable is the Tridot method to detect antibodies after 80 days (I have seen on many sites that the Tridot method is out dated) or should I use some more standard tests? 3) in India everywhere, even in goverment hospitals they use tridot only & Western Blot for Confirmation? 4) do I need to test again after the three month mark? and  5) Have you seen anyone who tested negative became positive after 80 days?  Awaiting your reply.   Please help.

Category: Punewali

Hello,

Thank you for your message, it is good to know that people take the time to appreciate our work. It seems that you are well informed about how HIV is spread. You must note however that the chances of HIV spreading through oral sex are very low and it is still very much debated how risky this activity is. It is nevertheless believed that there have been a few cases of HIV spreading during oral sex. A very good resource for information on the oral transmission of HIV is located at www.mpaetc.org/fdc_06/reznik_oralsex.ppt.
This can happen if infected blood from the mouth of the person giving oral sex (if there is a cut or sore and if you are HIV positive) enters the person they are giving oral sex to through the tip of the penis or the urinary tract. If the person received oral sex has HIV it can also spread from the semen or from blood if the penis has a cut or sore to the person performing oral sex if they have a cut or sore in their mouth.
In your case, as you said there are no visible cuts or sores on either the penis or in the mouth, your penis is only exposed to saliva and therefore chances of HIV infection are very low for you. There could however be the presence of microtears (not visible to the eye) and therefore it is good that you got tested. 
Usually a test at 80 days is fairly accurate but as each person's window period (the period between HIV infection and the presence of HIV antibodies) can last different amounts of time (between 3-6 weeks to 3 months and sometimes more is some people) a second test is recommended usually at 6 months. There have been cases of people testing positive after 80 days.
The TRIDOT test is perfectly reliable (over 99%), it is simply a quicker test than the ELISA test which most healthcare centres use. It is the method many of our NGO partners such as Deep Griha Society use for confirmation. The only reason many websites say it is an outdated test is because there are always new methods on the market that might be considered easier to use, more reliable or cheaper to make. If you feel that TRIDOT is not good enough for you then you can discuss this with your doctor and ask for other test options. Most hospitals/clinics in Pune provide ELISA tests as well as TRIDOT and Western Blot. Sassoon Hospital usually use ELISA tests.

I hope this helps. All the best,

Dr Punewali

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