I am at work and just received a message that my husband has had to go to casualty as he has been pricked by a discarded syringe.  Does anyone happen to know how long he will have to wait for blood results?  I am assuming he will have to have a full blood check but can't contact him at the moment to find out.
Thank you.

Not sure but cross fingers that it they give him the all clear :)

Lucy
xx

Thank you Lucy.  I am assuming he may get the results more quickly by going to Casualty (as advised by Doctor) or they could have done it at the surgery and sent them off.  I have fingers crossed too.

fingers crossed here aswell :-) 
am i right in thinking here theres cause for concern with hiv? my mum had a test for this last year and while i cant remember exactly how long it took for the result to come back i know it was more than a few days, could have been a week or two.  she got the all clear, but drove me nuts ringing me all the time whilst waiting for the result.

lets hope the results come throu quickly for you :-) good luck

The needle did draw blood so I would expect him to have the full tests including HIV.  Hopefully we will not wait too long.  Thanks for the good wishes.

Between 7 to 10 days for normal bloods.  Don't want to scare you or anything but I think that you have to be tested for HIV soon after and then another test 3 months later as it doesn't show straight away.

I'm sure that everything will be OK, but it will be a worrying 3 - 4 months, sorry to have to give you this information.  This was some time ago when it used to be like this and with the way things change I don't know whether it can be done any sooner these days.

I also have everything crossed for you and your husband :-) i'm sure that everything will be fine :-)

When I was pregnant (3/4 years ago), they offered me an HIV test, in with all of the other tests they do, it did take a couple of weeks to come back, but I believe that if it in the case of an emergency (such as this) they do try their best to get the results back quicker, although I think they test again in 3 months to be sure.

I hope he is OK, everything is crossed for you both :)

According to this site hiv wont show before 3 months as the chemicals in the blood will be too low to detect. Hope everything turns out ok tho you all must be so worried :(

Thank you everybody.  As it turned out he went to casualty only to be told that they would not give him a HIV test as they are liable if the result goes missing so must go back to his GP and arrange the HIV test through him.  They did however gove him a hepatitis injection.  So we shall wait and see.  They did class him as very low risk as although he punctured the skin on the needle drawing blood, HIV doesn't last very long outside the body so even if the needle was infected would unlikely be HIV active (or something like that) so he's going to have the test to be certain but it looks promising.  Again, thank you for the advice and good wishes.

maudlily, how worrying for you and your husband.  I have my fingers crossed for you.

My friend is a sexual health worker who specialises in HIV testing/counselling so I asked her advice on your husband's accident.  As previous posters have said, it can take up to three months for the virus to show up on a blood test.  However, your husband is in an extremely low risk group.  You are correct in saying HIV is a very fragile virus so even if the syringe had been used by an HIV positive person the chances of the virus surviving are tiny.

I realise that I'm really just reiterating what has already been said but I feel that in a situation like this you can't have too much support.

All the very best, thinking of you.

Mary-Caroline