bearbandit

I got HIV before we knew it was there (1980) but didn't test till 1987 (it was my anniversary yesterday). It wasn't until 1981 that GRIDS was described and 1983 before HTLV3 was recognised as the cause of what had been renamed aids. So I had only three or four years of the terror described. How guys who have remained HIV- and have lived through the whole epidemic is beyond me: I'd have gone insane. The fear of death through an opportunistic infection (my life expectancy has been as low as a few days) seems so much less than the fear of starting out on that road. I'm active on a PwHIV-only board where I keep wanting to slap some sense into the newly diagnosed: "It's only a virus! The drugs work! You'll probably live longer because of HIV because you'll see so much of your doctor!" Sure, the world would be a better place without HIV. My life would be better without HIV. But there are times when I feel closer to women with HIV (and I'm definitely not bisexual) than men who don't have HIV because the men exude this fear.

Not just liver numbers: the tenofovir in truvada goes for the kidneys in such a way that you end up pissing away the vitamins and minerals that should be recycled (check out Fanconi's Syndrome in Wikipedia). Admittedly the chances amongst people with HIV are 1 in 100,000, but the risk is there. Bone density loss is commoner. I broke my ankle coming of my bike on a bend I knew how to ride nearly two years ago. I still need a walking stick outdoors and in unfamiliar places. Most PwHIV I know have experienced some bone density loss within three to five years. I piss away enough calcium that I have to soak my PA in vinegar overnight twice a month to get rid of the limescale. More common are the gastric effects: it's not known as the farty drug for nothing. When I was taking it my waist size could change by three inches during the day thanks to its bloating effect. That's the downside for guys with HIV. The truth is that we don't know (yet) about the long term effects on guys who don't have HIV: after all it's only been 18 months or so since it was approved, which makes it all the more essential to keep up with the blood workups, report any unusual symptoms and talk to your doctor before giving it a break. Better to take it needlessly than have a break, get bred and get pozzed. The really horny guys always seem to turn up at the wrong time: I had to say "no" to a guy who wanted my ass (on my birthday too!) because I felt so unwell.

I understand your concern, but what you're describing could also (I'm sorry) be the effects of ageing, or any number of other conditions. I, too, was extremely concerned about the side effects of truvada when PrEP was approved (in fact I remember being extremely vocal about it here!), but then I'd come within days of death thanks to tenofovir which is one half of truvada (an effect which affects about 1 in 100,000 people per year - and it seems that people with HIV metabolise truvada differently as we get more side effects from it than people who don't have HIV). I hope it turns out to be something trivial and easily dealt with...

rawTOP, you may not have intended it but you've provided the perfect reason why we should be able to thank or flag up publicly posts which are particularly important.

I gave a guy more chances than he deserved because he stood by me when I was ill. We'd just got together physically when his ex (who was living with him) committed suicide - advanced diabetes, blind, needing a kidney transplant. An act of charity for FB to take him back. FB's ex committed suicide by removing the the catheters necessary for his dialysis. Bled to death. I supported FB as best I could and it was only the night of what was to be my birthday party orgy that we got snowed in. Long boring story snipped, but I escaped six days later when the trains were running again: he'd sat up all night writing poetry for the Eisteddfod. I'm disabled thanks to a rare reaction to an HIV drug and a bike accident. A year ago tonight I limped round to the rail station (he'd been up all all night writing poems for the Eisteddfod and got through a substantial amount of gin). The one thing I couldn't find before I left was my digital camera. After his cleaner found it it took a further month of nagging to get him to wrap it up and send it in the post to me. Haven't seen him since. But I counted up: over four dinner invitations (and I do a fucking wicked venison stew, complete with home made bread) he made precisely one. Guess I was the fool... especially as his approach to sex was more enthusiastic than skilful

Have to disagree: as top I need the eye contact to make sure that what I'm saying is understood. As bottom, there's a world of information I can convey just with my eyes. Communication (doesn't have to be verbal) is the key to better sex...

Get your viral load down to undetectable and it's perfectly possible. A member of the UK myHIV board has just given birth to a perfectly healthy baby. Of course, it'll be 18 months or so that we know that she only inherited her mother's antibodies, and has none of her own, meaning she dodged the bullet, but we're all very pleased for her. I take the view that if they can't take it they weren't worth knowing in the first place. As the saying goes "Real friends help you hide the body". Similarly real friends will just absorbe it as as another interesting fact about you. Night sweats are common during seroconversion illness and tend, as you suggest, to fade away. Some of us get stuck with them which is why I never buy a washing machine guarantee above three years! Can I suggest you read through the online magazine I write for at www.beyondpositive.org ? I'm the old man of the columnists, probably having put in almost as many HIV years as the rest put together. I got HIV in 1980 when I was 23: I expect to die of heart disease sometime in the next 20 or 30 years (last year's colonoscopy has shown a normal bowel, which was my big fear). The men in my blood family tended (I think I may be the eldest left by now!) to die young, but you should have have met my aunts! The £64000 question. The meds are a hell of a lot better now, so disregard any of my bitching about them! Ordinarily you'd expect to get to an undetectable viral load within six month at the most, although those rare being, the long term non-progressors, because they're not on meds tend to hover around 100 - 200 (which used to be undetectable before they moved the goal posts again. The VL test is constantly being improved, so the line for being undetectable drops. Mental health - worth seeing a counsellor. I can't answer your question about feeling like your old self because it's 34 years since I seroconverted and I don even remember who I was fucking then, much less how i was feeling! You'll get back to being you in your own good time. Some guys bounce back in a few months, others take a year or two. What I would recommend is that you search out a support group and get involved. I'm 34 years in and I depend on my visits to Living Proof ( http://nltsg.weebly.com/ ) to keep my head together. You've probably gathered that I'm very concerned with aftercare for PwHIV. I confess I neither know nor understand the US system of healthcare, but I'm open to any question outside of that field, either publicly or as a private message. Ask me an honest question publicly or privately and you'll get an honest answer. I want to see barebacking safer for all of us.

Organising homosexuals is like herding cats

AlwaysOpen - we're almost twins. I was diagnosed 26.1.87... whtbbcumhole4blk - your reaction sounds like a classic shock reaction: you just close down and don't feel anything. On the evening of the date referenced above I went to work my four hour phone shift at National Aids Helpline (in the UK) and said nothing about my diagnosis to anyone. Didn't hit me till the next night at the weekly leather bar I used to go to and I got talking to a friend who was a few months down the line. He took care of me that night. You might have a night where you need taking caring of or you might just accept and move on. As bbzh says, knowledge of your status is precious: I quickly decided to devalue it by being completely open about it as I am to this this day. Entirely your choice, just make sure that you make the choice that's right for you: you can't untell people. Whatever you do, get your medical care sorted out as soon as possible. Personally I'm in favour of hitting the litttle bastard hard and fast. The sooner you start meds the less likely you are to have side effects from the drugs (and I speak as one whose been pretty much round the entire pharmacy). Today's drugs are more effective than ever and less prone to side effects (which aren't compulsory anyway). Talk to your doctor. Use whatever works for you (or seems to work for you - you can't prove these things!). Positive thought, prayer, self hypnosis, I'll add another: Tarot magic - they're all basically the same thing and whichever form is most accessible to you is the one that'll give the best results. Tarot works for me, so that's what I use besides my pillbox. It's not an easy ride, but it gets easier every year. You've got a lot to think about right now so I won't overload you with information but please, if you think I can help with a question, drop me a line...

You're just meeting the wrong guys for you. When I'm topping I expect the boy to sit at my feet and absorb my words of wisdom (quite like bullshitting about anything for his agreement, especially if I know it's a fallacious argument). If I'm bottoming tell me how much I can speak, use me, clean up what my mouth can't manage, just be sure to close the front door properly because if you fucked me good and proper it might take me a while to get down there!

I believe sex and love to be entirely different things. I remember John driving back over to my the place the guy I was seeing (sex) lived because I'd forgotten to pick up my medication on the way over (love). Similarly when I was undergoing the chemical castration of ritonavir as it was when it was first developed it didn't bother me in the least to bring him and his boyfriend breakfast in bed (love - especially if you remember what early ritonavir did to your stomach!). Moving on, I have a couple of friends who live a couple of hundred miles from me who I love very dearly, but I'd never dream of interfering in their relationship (love), but if either of them want me for sex I'm there (sex). I have a friend who is probably the person in HIV politics I've known longest - I love him dearly, but sex would be like incest (love), yet fifteen years ago I was regularly getting fucked by his partner (sex). I stayed at their flat a couple of months ago and I still would have done it (nostalgia!) I think it's what really pisses off the homophobes: that we can fuck like bunnies, smile and say "great time!" and just keep it as a good memory, but with someone else (or the same guy or guys) it's love.

Get naked, then an arbitrary number of press-ups plus one for each minute over time.

I you've just taken a load containing any STI, douching is the worst thing you can do to avoid infection: it just pushes the infected cum further in and gives the STI a better chance to make itself at home in your butt.

If I had a pound for every "this one's really going to work - we know what we're doing now" article I've read over the past thirty odd years, I'd be writing this from a villa I own in Gran Canaria instead of a rented house in South Wales.

I once had a threesome with my then BF and our best friend's BF who "thought he might be bisexual". He was man enough to discover, by experience, that he was heterosexual, but not man enough to be teased about having experimented. It amused his GF that he'd tried it out enough that he finished with her (she was actually pleased that he'd tried it when so many guys wouldn't have). The sex itself was so memorable that neither my the BF nor I can remember the slightest detail.

I bow to your greater knowledge: this is the sort of case we never get to hear about here. So here, and the occasional link are my sources for comment. BTW, when I referred to you as "'slut" in an earlier post that was simply an affectionate abbreviation of your screen-name in the same way as I get referred to as "bear" or "bandit"...

It seems to vary from dick to dick - I had a 4mm ring in for years and after a couple of years out it took a lot of porn and poppers to get a 2mm ring in. This time I can't even get the 2mm ring in, hence the pencilled-in trip to the piercers. Even after a year I still piss out of both holes. The limescale buildup can be a problem if you have a high calcium diet or live in a hard water area and also depends on kidney function: John had constant limescale problems when I had none. Mine only started when kidney damage meant I was pissing away calcium I should have been re-absorbing. As for your romantic gesture, rawTOP, I did something similar: when John and I both had our PA's stretched I used our original PA rings as the tit rings I still wear today, though I'm damned if I know which was whose...

Wait till it doesn't hurt when you piss. That's when it's healed properly. It's mutual protection because a PA infection isn't much fun (I've had to take a friend to A&E with an infected PA - silly bugger wasn't washing it properly, and it's something that can happen anyway). I haven't had mine in for a year now and do I miss it! I'm on a calcium supplement because of kidney damage and had to remove the PA every couple of weeks to get rid of the limescale* that had built up. Before leaving for a party I forgot to put it back in and of course we got snowed in for a week, which is long enough for the piercing to close. Keep meaning to get the hole stretched so I can have my old dick back... How rough you can go is something that varies from dick to dick, basically depending on the depth of the piercing. Pain is your friend: if it hurts you're stressing it too much. *an overnight soak in white vinegar is usually enough to remove limescale, but as I demonstrate above the piercing closes fast, but not permanently - I can still get a darning needle through mine.

If "English" means amyl nitrite, they're the best: approach with caution and learn how to handle them. Then when you know your capacity, the world shrinks to the dick(s) in your mouth, ass and hands. Your vocabulary is limited to "yes please", "more" and "harder" (with the occasional "next"). They're bloody difficult to get hold of in the UK now as they're (I think) a class B drug and therefore illegal. The usual viagra/cialis warning stands even stronger here.

Note the reporter's switch from "exposing to HIV" to "giving HIV" within a couple of sentences. Talk about brainwashing!

1) I suppose you could call me a "special case" given the number of problems I've had from the drugs. However, I must stress that if my doctor had been more interested in my blood results other than CD4 and viral load, I would be fine: I don't believe in suing the NHS as it potentially takes funds away from other people's treatment. But the bastard was negligent. The drug problem was a 1 in 100,000 chance. The current (third) generation of drugs are safe, easy to take and have a low side effect profile. 2) The third generation drugs are beginning to come out of patent so generics may well be available before long, at a much lower price than the manufacturers have been gouging out of us. 3) Say nothing. If you get caught taking meds, you're taking a vitamin supplement, or if they see the pack, you've got a blood disorder that you don't want to worry other people about, so let's just keep it between us, huh? 4) PEP six months ago would have no bearing at all on any future treatments. By the time you got your little passenger, the PEP drugs would have been out of your system for months and so wouldn't affect the way a new drug regime worked. 5) First goal is to get your viral load undetectable, which leaves you in the situation where you're basically shooting blanks. Once you're undetectable your system is basically toxic to HIV. Re-infection is a worry from the past: we now know that it's something that happens about once a year in the entire world. Your more immediate concern should be other STIs which can disrupt your treatment. Get vaccinated for hepatitis A and B (unfortunately there isn't one for hepatitis C and the treatment for hep C is a bastard). In the UK we're warned every autumn to get immunised against flu (every year the predominant flu virus has mutated or changed). There's also available immunisation against cryptococcal pneumonia. After that, from what I understand, it's basically illegal not to disclose your status before sex - American help here please! Personally I always disclose (only my Grindr profile doesn't contain either HIV+ or poz and that started out as an experiment to see what difference coming out as poz on a profile makes). I don't feel comfortable not disclosing (unless it's a party situation where it's a fair bet that the neg guys are in the minority). Random late night thoughts... hope there's something useful there for you...

The worst is when you think you got rid of it all, you go out somewhere, even the local shop, and start cramping because there's still a bit more to come (experience)!

Tell me he's heading to Wales next...

In Wales "I'm bisexual" is code for "I'm married to a woman for family/neighbour's/community's sake, but actually I'm a total cock-hound"

My point is that if his partners really wanted to avoid the slightest risk of HIV they'd have insisted on keeping it safe. Pretty much the same way as I'd really really prefer not to get hepatitis C and have to make my own judgement on whether I trust the guy(s) when he/they say "no hep C here". However, I've only seen the one article about the case, so what do I know? <wry smile>