or has my Dsis exposed me to HIV risk?

[SinkerSailor]

I'm 4 months pregnant. I suffer from anxiety but I'm not on medication currently, because of the pregnancy. I'm really worried about something my sister has done. I don't know if I'm being unreasonable.

Firstly, my Dsis recently cheated on her DH with a guy who travels the world for work and who sleeps around a lot. I've sworn not to tell anyone.

Secondly, Dsis also has a close friend who is an HIV-positive gay man. He only got diagnosed recently. Apparently, Dsis and her friend like to kiss each other 'for laughs' when they get drunk. I am aware that kissing is almost zero risk, but apparently there can be a small risk if there are mouth ulcers/gum disease or similar.

Thirdly, Dsis stayed at my house for a week recently. Halfway through her visit I realised she had been using my razor. I may have used it after her, I'm not sure. Apparently a few cases have been recorded of HIV transmission through shared razors.

I got so anxious about this yesterday that I had to speak to DH, but I didn't tell him about the cheating, only kissing the gay guy. We agreed that I would ask Dsis to take an HIV-test, mentioning only that I'm worried for her health.

Today, when I spoke to Dsis, she agreed to take a test. She will probably have to wait six weeks to do this.

However... she also told me that, while they used condoms for PIV, she also had unprotected oral sex with the guy she cheated on her DH with. Now I am even more worried. I have promised Dsis not to tell anyone she has cheated on her DH but if I'm at risk, then my DH is at risk and he needs to know. Or am I being hysterical about this?

Please go easy on me.

"She's been behaving a bit weird lately."

Oh the irony.

Jesus try having some sympathy, anxiety is a horrible condition. Sufferers often know they are being irrational, we just can't bloody help it.

Hope you are more reassured OP, chances are so minuscule as to be negligible I would think but get the reassurance you need and talk to Dr re managing the anxiety during the pregnancy.

@PinaColada1 Sorry to hear you had a hard time. I will get tested, but I don't think I'll mention the HIV thing to the midwife. I don't want it on my notes. I'll probably go privately somewhere.

@Rattinghat Dsis was going through a crisis and she told me as part of me trying to support her through it. I was really worried about her so she came out with this. I think she needed to tell someone. She also apologised for putting this on me when I'm pregnant and should avoid stress. She's my best friend, she is not awful at all. But she really has been behaving weird lately.

@ThatEscalatedQuickly Thank you, I really do feel better but maybe I should talk to someone.

But still she needs to prioritise your unborn baby. Tell her maternal stress does harm the unborn, just like smoking, and she wouldn't smoke in the room with you.

@Rattinghat I think she's agreed to get tested for that reason. Which I'm really glad about.

I also think you should talk to your husband and sister about ways to proactively avoid stress during the rest of your pregnancy. Ask for help and ideas. You are off your meds so vulnerable.

It's not enough to just sort out the current fiasco. It needs to be proactive care and protection for you.

My uncle lived with HIV and then Aids for 10 years. I went to his house, used his toilet, ate the food he cooked, gave him hugs and a peck on the lips. I'm OK, and so is the rest of my family.

The HIV virus dies the split second it comes into contact with air, so any dried blood/bodily fluids on your razor won't be any risk at all.

I seriously think you have nothing to worry about. Just enjoy your pregnancy .

@WoofWoofMooWoof

Thank you. I do realise people are not really infectious when they are successfully treated. I'm much more worried about people who don't know they have it. It would be great if people could just get tested and treated. Dsis friend had slept with over 200 people and still never got tested until he was 30. They think he's had it since he was 20.

Just to go back to your OP - HIV is not transmitted through saliva so your sister is not at any risk from kissing her friend who’s just been diagnosed. I echo the explanations of PP who say your DSIS isn’t really at risk from just oral sex with the other man.

As PP have said you are not at risk here, but if it would make you feel better to be tested again then go to your local sexual health clinic. No need to go private. You could even ask your GP as part of getting help for anxiety.

Hope you can get some closure soon

People with HIV have for years been having sex for natural conception without using condoms and not transmitted it to their partners.

^^ This. My uncle had unprotected sex with his boyfriend for 10 years, and the b/friend never contracted HIV.

I didn't tell him about the cheating, only kissing the gay guy.

surely both are cheating?

This all sounds very ignorant and like an old lady in 1983....do you call homosexuals 'the gays' as well

@SinkerSailor - my uncle had HIV 20 years ago (he died from Aids related complications), way before the medication of today. And he still never passed it on.

PP have already done the mathematical projections, OP, so you'll know that statistically speaking you're roughly about as safe as if you'd lived in complete isolation all your life.

What I wanted to say was something else: I'm a kid of the 90s, so I grew up with the HIV anxiety thing. As a young teen, never yet kissed, I was utterly convinced that I wouldn't live to see my 20th birthday. It was abundantly clear to me that I would most definitely die of AIDS before adulthood. I was ridiculously well informed, too, so I knew that public toilets, kisses and giving first aid to a stranger weren't an infection risk. This didn't help.

I'm assuming you may be in your 30s (like myself - so much for the never making it to the wrong side of 20 bit) and may have grown up exposed to similar messages to the ones that scared me as a teen. Don't know if this helps but: what we heard growing up was important. Yes, it was omnipresent and, yes, some of us (me for instance) may have been a tad overexposed and may have worried a bit too much as a result. But HIV/AIDS awareness was, on the whole, one of the most successful public health campaigns out there.

When they taught us this stuff, a diagnosis of HIV essentially meant you were living on borrowed time (it doesn't anymore, really). And since one of the primary ways people got infected (i.e. sex) was not something people were going to stop doing, it was arguably a good idea to try and hammer home the message that you had to be very cautious about getting into contact with other people's bodily secretions. (Though fanning the flames of paranoia was decidedly not a good idea - I literally grew up around people terrified of public loos because of it.)

The point is: we, by which I mean people roughly around my age, may be somewhat over-sensitive to what we perceive as the risks of infection. And we may be so as a result of deliberate awareness raising. And that's a small price to pay for what was achieved all in all, namely the fact that kids in my generation did not get infected because 'it doesn't feel as good with a condom on' was never an argument.

Don't know if this help you - it did help me. (Also, statistics class at university did. And getting therapy for my general anxiety issues.)

@WithAllIntenseAndPurposes

Sorry. I hope the next incarnation of my health anxiety is a bit more woke.

OP, I really do hope you can get some support for your anxiety.

I think your sister is likely to continue sleeping around, maybe with different partners. Will you be able to manage if she’s holding and kissing the baby when s/he arrives, and you’re worrying about whether your sister has contracted something?

@SkullPointerException

Thanks for a great post. Yes I am 30+. When I was younger, people did actually think you could contract HIV by kissing.

@JustHereForThePooStories

Even I'm not crazy enough to think you can pass anything on by holding a baby. (Well, not yet, anyway...)

I think I'm going to leave it there, because I think this is as good as it's going to get. I've had so many helpful and supportive comments and only a handful of snarky ones, so thanks again. I feel so, so, so much better. I will look at ways to manage my anxiety better.

OP I think that your being treated a little harshly here. Your underlying anxiety had made you feel like this. The HIV is what yoir mind has fixated on but this could have been any other nunber of things and may well be in the future. AIBU is notoriously tough and not the best place to be posting if you're not feeling at your best.

Having said that you need to be seeking help simply because your anxiety is affecting your wellbeing. People are being harsh with you but there are people living as outcasts because of the very real stigma around HIV. So they were never going to be gentle.

You're welcome .
And I agree with The Magician - telling you that you need to 'educate yourself' is supercilious, although I realise HIV is a sensitive issue. It's also missing a lot of important information - educate yourself about what? Where? Are you assuming that the person concerned isn't educated already? Are we supposed to know everything about everything now? And are people supposed to 'educate themselves' out of a mental health condition (in your case? Good luck with that last one.
Not something you need to focus on right now though. Concentrate on getting some rest and all that jazz.

@SinkerSailor I'm sure the risk is virtually non existent, but I feel so sorry for you. I also have health anxiety and once something is in your head it takes over and it's not just feeling worried - is so much more than that. I went through a similar situation last year whilst pregnant and it was awful. Could you speak to your midwife? There are specialist MH midwife teams available.

She's told me she's not doing it anymore. I can't blow her life apart like that.
With all due respect she's the one responsible for any damage, not you. It wouldn't be you blowing her life apart, it would be her selfish cheating. Sod what she feels like, how about BIL?!
And once a cheat, always a cheat. She's got away with it this time, she'll want the thrill again.

The risk here is basically nil. You're fretting over nothing.