HIV

[Daniel28]

Hi everone,I had an endoscopy around a month ago and was possibly the worst thing I've ever experienced,and I'm now starting to think I've contracted HIV, I recently read an article that "upto 30% of endoscopes remain contaminated after manual cleaning". The nurse that performed mine said the scopes go through a 50 minute cleaning process but I still can't help thinking I could have it. Is the risk high and would HIV symptoms develop a month on like feeling run down and having sniffles,sneezing, flu like symptoms etc ?

[Fishmanpa]

No... just no........

Positive thoughts

[Jamesk]

Not even the remotest of possibilities in my opinion. HIV virus lives outside the human body for only the very briefest of periods and so even if they hadn't cleaned the equipment actively at all (which obviously they will have done) the mere action of leaving the equipmetn lying around in the atmosphere would be enough to have killed off any contamination in the almost inconceivable event that there was any there in the first place.

Simply not feasible so please don't expend nervous energy worrying.

[Daniel28]

Thanks for the replies, I contacted the endoscopy unit today for reassurance and the nurse I spoke to said the ones used on HIV patients are not used again and they get thrown away but me being the way I am I find this hard to believe because if the endoscopes go through a scrupulous cleaning process as the nurse says why would they need to dispose ones that potentially become contaminated with HIV?

[Fishmanpa]

Let us know how you make out then.

Positive thoughts

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thanks for the replies, I contacted the endoscopy unit today for reassurance and the nurse I spoke to said the ones used on HIV patients are not used again and they get thrown away but me being the way I am I find this hard to believe because if the endoscopes go through a scrupulous cleaning process as the nurse says why would they need to dispose ones that potentially become contaminated with HIV?

Because it's a safeguard, nothing more. Can you imagine how many patients would feel if they had to re-use one that could have been used by someone with an infectious disease? It's why they don't re-use needles and open a fresh one from a medically sealed pack. They could clean that needle instead but defined health & safety practice has decided that if they were cleaned there could always be a mistake by a human being or the process in how it is managed and the outcome to the newly infected patients would be catastrophic. So, they get thrown away. Aside from medical standards, they would have issues with patients not wishing to take the risk. This doesn't mean people on this website, it means many average members of the public that wouldn't want to sit on a toilet seat after 20 other people without cleaning it first.

Use that to fight off what sounds more increasingly like contamination OCD to me.

Think of this example of how the NHS operate. Until recently any medication that was in date and still sealed that was returned to a pharmacy or doctor's surgery by a patient had to be sent off to be destroyed? Why when it is sealed and perfect? Answer - because it's policy. Now they are working on changing this because it costing the NHS millions and it's a complete waste of perfectly re-useable medication.

Can you see what I mean about how procedures are not always how you may intepret them using a common sense rule?

The thing about OCD is, you can put as many facts & figures there and the worry will persist because you are using All-or-nothing thinking and that 0.00000001% chance of something happening prevents you accepting it. It is this that needs working on with a variety of strategies.