How can you tell if you contracted the AIDS virus?

AIDS is the final stage of the HIV virus. You contract HIV, not AIDS.

At first there may not be any symptoms at all. The virus can live in the body without showing any symptoms for up to 10 years untreated. Symptoms do not seriously begin to develop until the virus has moved into the AIDS stage, which is the final stage of HIV infection. Within this stage, symptoms include:

Mild: fatigue, unexplained weight loss, mild fever, diarrhea, and sore throat.
Severe: loss of appetite, skin diseases, night sweats, and deterioration of mucous membranes.

The best bet is to get tested regularly if you engage in risky sexual activity, or use injection drugs. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact your local department of public health. Free testing is available, as well as risk reduction, and post-infection counseling.

you die

You have to be tested. Check with your doctor or your local Planned Parenthood clinic or type "confidential aids test" and "your city" into yahoo or google search.

Go to the clinic and have a screening. As far as side affects, I'm not sure.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. There are many people with HIV (HIV+ antibody test) but they do not have AIDS. AIDS results in people with HIV who have a severely compromised immune system resulting in many infectious diseases that are not common in healthy individuals. The AIDS diagnosis requires 1) positive HIV antibody test indicating presence of HIV and 2) low CD4 count (<200) or and AIDS-defining opportunitistic infection

If you are worried about having contracted HIV - get tested! There are a number of community and county health clinics that offer free and anonymous testing for HIV antibody. Also, many universities have HIV research programs and they can often enroll you in a study if you have recently been infected.