bearbandit
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Everything posted by bearbandit
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Once you know you're poz the important thing isn't so much the CD4 count as the viral load. Get that down and the CD4 count will move slowly upwards. I say slowly because a friend of mine who's been poz almost as long as me has never got above 300 CD4. As Tiger says find your doctor: one you can talk to and who'll listen to you. Decide how long you're prepared to put up with side effects for (4 weeks?) and be prepared to go back and demand a change if the shoe don't fit. Also remember that side effects aren't compulsory. If you have IBS you might want to avoid using protease inhibitors as these irritate the gut (one of HIV's favourite places) more than any other class of ART in my experience (and believe me, there are few ARTs I haven't taken at one point or another). If it looks like protease inhibitors are likely, peppermint oil 0.2mg three times a day can help - sufficiently so that it's a prescription item as well as an over the counter item in the UK. I don't know how many of us here are poz, but the thing I do know is that guys like Tiger and me and the other poz guys (it's up to them to self-identify) will answer any questions you have. The only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. And if that's Doncaster as in the UK, I suggest you go to www.myhiv.org.uk and sign up there. With a second registration (basically to keep the non-poz people out) you'll have access to the myHIV forums - run by and for people with HIV. It's the biggest collection of knowledge about life with HIV in Europe and is constantly growing. I use a different user name there (Taliesin), but the same avatar - drop in and say hello.
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To What Degree Does "On Meds" = "Undetectable"?
bearbandit replied to rawTOP's topic in HIV Risk & Risk Reduction
What's undetectable? A few years ago it was below 400 or 500. These days, it's below 70, 50, 40 or even 20. It all depends on the lab and the hospital's attitude. At my hospital it used to be below 50 but now it's below 70 because they use a different lab. And since viral load is measured on a logarithmic scale, 500 is only twice the number of viral particles as 50. I can't explain any further: I'm good at arithmetic and lousy at actual maths. Wise not to offer "undetectable" as an option since it's a moving target. A drop down box giving options <100. <1000, <10000 and so on? Or even just a write-in box? Also remember that newly pozzed guys are liable to have a viral load up in the clouds when they start meds and that VL should drop to "an acceptable level" within a couple of months. Despite my meds I manage to blip just about every year, but that blip is rarely above the old 400 undetectable level: it usually coincides with autumn and the annual flu inoculation. Most guys maintain a higher VL in their cum than in their blood, except those of us on integrase inhibitors: these seem to have a greater capacity to imprison HIV in its hiding places, hence my two successive zero VLs (ie no HIV found in blood sample: I don't know of a clinic in the UK that does VL testing on semen, though with straight guys becoming fathers, somewhere must be doing it. After my partner died and I took a drug holiday I went up to about 65k, which isn't really anything to worry about - mildly infectious is what I'd call it. The important number became my CD4 count which dropped from its zenith of 888 to 200 or so (been lower than that though). In the UK they're more worried about keeping our viral loads down than they are about our CD4 counts. With today's meds if someone doesn't get below VL 500 within three months, they're on the wrong drugs, is the thinking. Hope this is of some help -
Try it in Wenglish: "Where are you to?" (Seriously, that's how we say it...)
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I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's much less likely than they'd like us to believe. Believe me, until I found my last dentist I was totally dental phobic (to the extent that I refused a gastroscopy in hospital because it involved something non-living and made of plastic going through my mouth into my throat). By the time I faced up to my phobia my mouth looked worse than the worst case of meth mouth you've ever seen. Want me to take 'em out for sucking? Make me an offer!
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pet hates: socks and wristwatches... both imply "I want this over with as soon as possible" to me...
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I can't remember what the figure is for supposed oral transmissions. It's theoretically possible, but as far as I can see you'd have to be sucking someone with a fairly high viral load while at the same time having the sort of mouth damage that would really put you off the idea of sucking cock and swallowing pain killers instead. Home testing kits are about to become legal in the UK and one of the concerns about them is their accuracy (86%), which with something as serious as HIV can be just isn't good enough. My view of home testing in the UK is that if you're adult enough to be fucking, you're adult enough to go to a registered testing centre and have it done there. The other thing with the incidence of HIV via cocksucking is how many guys swear blind that they never took it up the ass, like it's less "gay", and therefore more respectable, to suck a dick than sit on it. I'm convinced that enough guys have told this comforting little "I'm not really gay" lie to skew the transmission figures. The only guy with HIV who wasn't an IV user who I've believed when he said he never had anal sex reckoned he got it from a blood transfusion during an operation before blood was routinely screened in the UK. Please, go and have your regular test and don't worry about it.
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I tried riding with a butt plug in: while it made getting caught by the traffic lights at red a positive delight (and explains all the revving the bikers do at the lights?), I found it far too much of a distraction while riding through London traffic, especially along the Embankment, or in the West End, where the only way to make progress is to filter.
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Nothing beats the broad waistband Bike jock, preferably in black - I buy them in bulk. Only underwear I've worn since the nineties
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The bit about outing people with HIV comes from Tom's hyperbole (and frankly I'm a little embarrassed about that even if he is a friend). The "damniing" conversation behind one of the profiles contains only what they've said, without any reply from the guy they posted it to so you could well be right about the motive being homophobia. Someone (who I only know by his screen name elsewhere) has posted a picture of Miss Piggy - satire is probably the best weapon. As long as they're posting profiles of guys I think we have a duty to warn guys in the region that this is happening lest they fall into the same entrapment, which is why the guys who reported the site to the police have stayed off the subject on Twitter tonight.
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This fucking site is active again, this time with a redirect to a server in Sweden. And they're using profiles again. A friend who lives in the area the saddo is working from says he knows one of the guys featured. Definitely NE England.
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HIV Vaccination on the horizon?
bearbandit replied to Rayne's topic in HIV/AIDS & Sexual Health Issues
You're right, Deepanalnut... I'm glad you're taking part in research. I'm not even a long term non progressor, "just" a long term survivor, but I've often thought that there's got to be something about my system that's allowed me to take medication since 1989 (I don't personally know anyone still alive who started earlier than me), and get through despite all the hits I've taken from the meds. My CD4 nadir is 80 - it was there for over a year until protease inhibitors came along and I started putting on CD4 cells twice as fast as the next nearest at the clinic. My diet tends to wholefoods by preference, but I used to smoke heavily, both cigarettes and cigars, and I drink more than the guidelines recommend. Even when tenofovir and atazanavir ganged up on me wrecking my kidneys and doing yet more liver damage respectively, my HIV numbers remained consistently good. By all common sense I should have been dead years ago: why not (I'm not complaining!)? If there were a study looking into long term survivors, I'd gladly be taking part in it, but no such creature... -
Teens come out, do it with another recently out teen, and both figure that given their relative inexperience, there's damn all chance of them having HIV. After a few years and a lot more sexual experience, they start taking in the message that HIV isn't what it was in the eighties and start thinking "well, I'm probably going to get it anyway, so why change how I have sex?" Reporting on HIV has been unusually optimistic these past couple of years, with the media full of how it's "just" a life long condition that can be treated. We even get claims that people with HIV may have a slightly higher life expectancy because we spend more time with our doctors than the average person without HIV. Two or three years ago you didn't admit to barebacking. Now with an undetectable viral load being as much a protection (or more, since condom use is very variable) against HIV, raw sex has become a matter for the guys involved. Indeed, I've been told by someone high up in the THT (our main HIV/sexual health charity) that the reason they keep the stress on condoms is because that's what the main (ie millions of pounds) donors want. Now I feel secure enough with today's attitudes to talk casually about barebacking and my attitude to it in my column at beyondpositive, which I wouldn't have done even a year ago.
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HIV Vaccination on the horizon?
bearbandit replied to Rayne's topic in HIV/AIDS & Sexual Health Issues
It's extremely rare for a drug to be fast tracked these days: we learned that lesson from AZT, ddI, and the early protease inhibitors. We'll never know the true death toll from AZT (I took it and survived, it killed the partner of one of my closest friends) because HIV itself could have been the cause of the same problems - anaemia was the principle problem, but it also had horrendous side effects like crippling headache, vomiting, and peripheral neuropathy. ddI was similar but with pancreatitis thrown into the mix. The early protease inhibitors, we now know, were prescribed in massive overdose and almost instantly caused metabolic problems. The problem was that we had very few choices of drug and anything that could up going until the next, hopefully better, one, we took. Not to take them was a means of suicide. The situation is different now: if one combination doesn't suit, for all but the most drug experienced, there's going to be an alternative. Basically we're the only ones on sub-optimal therapy these days, but even that can work: I have about 500 CD4s at 26% and a viral load of zero, largely thanks to raltegravir. It seems that the integrase inhibitors are better than any other class of drug at getting into the places where HIV hides. Sorry to go on: I know it's a hobby horse of mine, but more information than you need is better than not enough. We've got to the point where successful ARV treatment can leave you incapable of passing it on. Combine that with PrEP and the biggest problems are other STIs. We can afford to wait while projects like genetic therapy are developed. Ok, taking pill(s) every day isn't ideal, but whether you're dodging HIV or keeping it under control, that's a great incentive to take the damn pills. -
Almost certainly: one of the guys they targetted had a profile that said he lived in Gosforth and was less than ten miles away. Plus a friend who lives in Newcastle knew two of the guys targetted. At present the site only shows a few tweets but large screen-shots of the guy whose online mag I write for. West Midlands and Great Manchester police are investigating...
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And they're off again, having added to the site over the past few hours and ranting like crazy on twitter. Going by the fact that I know a guy who knows two of the guys who were entrapped last night, I reckon they're based in North East England, probably the Tyne and Wear area. They're fighting their bigoted little corner in a very nasty manner. Whatever their motives, these guys are potentially dangerous: be careful when chatting and watch out for "entrapment" style questions/statements.
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Exactly - the number of guys in Australia I've pozzed on Growlr while I've been having my morning cup of tea... I get off on writing poz fiction, and the thought of other guys getting off on what I've written. The scene in Pozdaddy where Poz cuts his dick to be sure of pozzing Mochyn - well, it was a hell of a wank after I'd written that, but there's no way I'd do that with a neg guy (and very few poz guys).
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Last we heard they'd moved to a server in South Africa, their second move tonight. It's back up again, though this time without the profiles and conversation screenshots. Several UK police forces are investigating them libel is a civil offence here, but what they're doing is a hate crime.
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Last we heard they'd moved to a server in South Africa, their second move tonight. It's back up again, though this time without the profiles and conversation screenshots. Several UK police forces are investigating them libel is a civil offence here, but what they're doing is a hate crime.
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A new site went up today at caughtlads.com (no www) I'll let them speak for themselves: Caught Lads was created to expose those who use apps such as Grindr to cheat on their partners, have bareback sex with randoms (and lie about it to others), which increases the spread of STIs and HIV. This is not a service to out people with HIV - it exposes bareback and 'pozzer' culture, which is a public health risk.They're on twitter at @CaughtLads Twitter is presently repeatedly crashing with the shitstorm this site has created. They're working on the site as I write - not so long ago they stopped referring the to the people they're outing as skanks and have changed some of the wording. The "Tom" they refer to on their front page is the editor of the online magazine I write for www.beyondpositive.com . Be careful in your conversations on Grindr and any other apps (or stop using them altogether in protest). So far the five guys "exposed" are all in England. No idea if this is going to spread abroad, if the police will get involved or what (What they're doing is generally thought to be illegal under British law , though no-one has been able to get legal advice yet...
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Might be having side effects, so I've gone off PrEP
bearbandit replied to rawTOP's topic in PrEP Discussion
Complera is a combination of rilpirivine, emtricitabine (FTC) and tenofovir, the latter two are the components of truvada. I've only heard of one guy with HIV having lactic acidosis, but he's in the same position as me: a severely fucked system through long term therapy (we both started on AZT monotherapy). However, both components of truvada can get your liver upset, a symptom of which can be pain (aching like you've just done a damn good workout) in the long muscles. It's literally just occurred to me that I complained about such pain at my last check-up: the consultant was of the opinion that it was more likely a symptom of vitamin D overdose - I have to take a supplement since my kidneys crashed in 2012... Not an answer, I fear, but I hope a little more information... -
On why I started barebacking
bearbandit replied to rawfuckr's topic in Making The Decision To Bareback
One of the reasons for a biohazard tattoo... Mine's on the back of my neck, just the tips visible if I'm wearing a shirt, but I'm more likely to be wearing a singlet, in which case it's totally visible. My VL is undetectable so I feel okay about getting fucked raw by neg guys, but I don't fuck guys who don't know they're poz. Online, unless he's exceptional, I only go for poz guys. -
On why I started barebacking
bearbandit replied to rawfuckr's topic in Making The Decision To Bareback
Other side of the coin: long term poz (seroconversion rash in 1980 when they didn't even know what it was). I've always hated condoms - they bloody hurt! My last long term partner wasn't into fucking (well, not with his dick) so condoms became irrelevant. I had a period of celibacy after his death - who wants to fuck with someone who's carrying the baggage of grief and mourning - and when I started getting laid again I still used condoms. I found this site in 2011 and joined to "understand the bareback mentality" like the good little condom nazi I was. I've had rubbered sex once in the past couple of years, and that was with an escort who said he couldn't afford other STIs, which I thought was reasonable. (And if you'd seen the size of his dick, you'd have paid too!) Otherwise, since PrEP isn't approved here I rely on treatment as protection: my viral load is zero (that's a number not a euphemism). I serosort as much as I'm able to: if he isn't poz I bottom, just in case I've blipped (my hospital appointments are now four months apart). I've got a trade-off too: STIs (especially syphilis) can really mess your numbers up and, of course, can be more difficult to treat. To me, it's worth the risk. I used to love my motorbike, but accept that the accident that wrote him off and left me with a permanently broken ankle was equally worth the risk. -
My point was that his next port of call could be a sauna where he gets loaded up - without total trust or constant surveillance all a negative result reliably says is that HIV antibodies were not found at <time> <date>. However, yes, the fact of testing shows that he does care about his health...
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Might be having side effects, so I've gone off PrEP
bearbandit replied to rawTOP's topic in PrEP Discussion
Good luck with it all... -
Troublefuck is right - I've seldom agreed so completely with any post. 1. It's only a virus 2. The drugs work 3. There's no point worrying about what's done. You'll find out soon enough. But as long as you do worry, talk about it: repressing emotions is bad for you. 4. A single exposure (even in the case, as this seems to be, from someone who's liable to have a high viral load) does not guarantee infection. Some guys trying to get HIV, to their frustration, fail to year upon year (I should get so much sex!) Lecture over. Even if you did get it, it's not the end of the world. Yesterday I celebrated my 27th HIV diagnosis birthday. And I know that I picked it up in 1980 (the rash - unrecognised at the time except "we've been seeing a lot of this rash recently", said the clap clinic nurse - is unmistakeable). I bitch about my health at times here, but most of the damage was done by early HIV drugs. These days they're safe, prescribed in the correct dose, and reliable. A few have side effects, it's true, but if you can't deal with one combination, there are others to choose from. And then, your test might turn up negative. Either way, let us know what's happening...