Fear of getting HIV tested again

[fed1983]

Next weekend my local city council will be carrying out an HIV-testing day at the local hospital, with these rapid tests which give your results back in 20 minutes, at no cost.

They don't do this everyday unfortunately, only on special occasions, so this is a good opportunity to go and get tested.

However, last year I had a false-positve result, and that was a traumatic experience for me. I would hate going to this test next weekend and have an ELISA come back positive again, no matter what the confirmatory test says! I feel like I don't want to get tested ever again, but at the same time, I know that a negative ELISA will give me absolute peace of mind.

The fact that I tested (and I think re-tested) positive for ELISA last year, with the confirmatory test being negative, does it mean that I will always test positive for ELISA?

 

[mbamike]

Regardless of your concerns about ELISA, you should be tested every three months for HIV if you are sexually active.

 

[KaraBulut]

For people who have false positives to ELISA, there's no point in wasting time and money on retesting with ELISA. The test of choice for you is either a Western Blot (antibody) test or an antigen test. This takes you out of the typical public screening protocol, so you may want to have your physician run the tests for you.

 

[fed1983]

Thank you KaraBulut. Unfortunately I was very poorly advised when all of this happened. My physicians didn't have much idea really. The thing would be to know if I tested positive only on that particular occasion or if it will be for life. On all my previous occasions I was Elisa negative up to that test last year.

 

[KaraBulut]

What most people don't realize is that HIV testing is run on diluted plasma. Undiluted plasma tests positive on HIV antibody tests in most people. By diluting the plasma, it reduces the reactivity so- in theory- only people with very high concentrations of HIV antibody react in the test. The dilution on the ELISA test is set so that it favors false positives over false negatives. That's why every positive ELISA should be run through the more specific and more accurate Western Blot test.

We do see false positives on the ELISA that are expected- pregnant women have a higher rate of false positives, for example. There's a population of people who have antibodies that are similar enough to HIV antibody that, even after dilution, the ELISA test produces a "reactive" result.

In the old protocol, every ELISA was sent for Western Blot before we advised the patient of the result. In the new testing protocol where there's an instant screening result, we then have to collect a blood specimen to send for the confirmation test which takes several days.

In these cases where you've had consistent false positive ELISAs with a negative Western Blot, NAT or PCR, there's no need to run a ELISA/EIA or RAT. It's more expensive but you should be tested with the more specific and more accurate testing methods.

 

[Telstra]

Interesting to learn there is a:
"false positive"
"false negative"

Depends on the cost of the test. I have no idea.

 

[fed1983]

Actually Telstra, there's a lot we don't know about testing. There's very little information on false positive cases, and the information I found is basically repeated.

False negatives I think occur mainly when testing during the window period.

Many people also think that an elisa will give you the final and definite result, without knowing about the confirmatory tests.

Thanks KaraBulut for your answer! I only hope my elisa testing isn't permanent, since I'd like to rely on these quick tests to get tested, much more comfortable and less painful and stressful