How much risk for a Poz (undetctable for 8 years)

[bottompigboi]

Wanting to give my ass to my first known Poz man......he's been undetctable for 8 years.........is the risk minimal?

[MackyJay]

If he is taking meds properly the risk is very minimal. I took 7 or 8 loads after being fisted from an undetectable man over a year ago and all within about a 2 month period and still neg. From what medical 'facts' I have been able to find, it is a very very low risk. Risk actually calculated to be lower from undetectabel guy who is taking his meds than from a 'so called' neg guy who has been checked lately.

[pointer2play]

There are supporting FACTS online for MackyJay's anecdotal information. A few EU countries are soon if not already accepting Blood and body parts from med compliant undectable poz men. And tbe World Health Organization is shifting focus from prevention to testing and treatment. Condom suck... lol! The paradigm shift recogises that prevention doesn't work but if everyone gets tested and treated the AIDS pandemic can be stopped. Obviously the men with the resistant Super Bugs will still be able to keep the bug chasers needs supplied... just saying. If you want solid info about current HIV risks Google it and cross check your sources.

[wood]

Wanting to give my ass to my first known Poz man......he's been undetctable for 8 years.........is the risk minimal?

The risk is quite low, but there are always too many variables to give you an accurate assessment.

Factors like this can significantly affect your risk

*his most recent illness (even a cold)

*your immune system health

*who is fucking who

*how much he ejaculates

*your rectal health

*STD's you both may have

*size of his penis

*lube or no lube

*how rough the sex is

*how many times you have sex

All of these can affect your risk level.

Before I went on PrEP I would routinely have sex with undetectable guys and would top them without protection. With PrEP, I am completely vers, and have no issues having bareback sex with an undetectable partner as long as they are free of other STI's.

Really its a decision you have to make. It is a low risk, but not zero risk. If you think you are going to be having sex with undetectable guys more often, you should think about PrEP. It essentially makes your risk zero for sex with an undetectable guy.

[wood]

There are supporting FACTS online for MackyJay's anecdotal information. A few EU countries are soon if not already accepting Blood and body parts from med compliant undectable poz men.

Do you have a source for this?

Also when you say this I would assume it is going from HIV+ person to another HIV+ person. I am almost 100% sure blood and organ transplants even from an undetectable person would be too much of a risk right now.

[spitjack]

I took my first known poz load in Oct 2013 took another from the same guy 2 weeks later and tested neg this month. He and talked about for a long time before he would breed me and it was the best sexually experience i've had - i felt like a whole person as soon as he started pumping his cum inside me. not sure if that helps but i waited a long time and feel like i understood the risks and glad i did it.

[bearbandit]

Basically what you're talking about is the other side of PrEP: Treatment as Protection (TasP). Together they're probably better than condoms at preventing infection since the PrEP protects the neg guy and the poz guy is to all intents and purposes shooting blanks. As a general rule the VL in semen tends to be a bit higher than in blood, but still not enough virus to establish an infection. They've also noted that integrase inhibitors (raltegravir, dolutegravir) seem to reach further into HIV's places to hide so a guy on an integrase inhibitor can achieve an even lower VL, which would presumably include the VL in his cum.

[Poz1956]

There are supporting FACTS online for MackyJay's anecdotal information.

From all of the medical literature around HIV, there is one, count it one person who is reported to have caught it from his undetectable partner. Even that report notes that there isn't a confirmed neg test on file (just his word). The length of time between the supposed transmission event, and the Poz test was so long, that it was not possible to determine if the virus had come from the undetectable partner via genotyping.

A few EU countries are soon if not already accepting Blood and body parts from med compliant undectable poz men.

Clearly your own Google fu was a little lacking on this one.

The only way you can ethically study this sort of thing, is long term follow-up of serodiscordant couples We sometimes get cutesy and call them Magnetic couples, because it's a relationship where one person is Poz and the other is Neg. Also called serodivergent. The Partner study includes both gay and straight couples. Before this study there was very little research of HIV in gay relationships, and none with enough data to draw statistically significant conclusions. All of the Pozzies in the Partner study have an undetectable viral load.

On Monday, March 6, 2014 the preliminary results from the Partner study were presented at CROI 2014. (Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections)

NONE of the HIV Negative partners contracted HIV from their Poz partner, in the first two years of the study. With an estimated 14,400 condomless sex acts in the gay couples and 28,000 from the straight ones, ZERO Negative partners caught HIV from their Positive spouse. In a cumulative 894 Years of follow-up with these couples there was not a single transmission from the Poz mate.

Based on the number and type of sex acts, if the Pozzies had not been under treatment, they would have expected about 86 of the gay neg guys to seroconvert.

This is truly a game changer. It moves TasP (Treatment as Protection) from a Public health initiative that reduces transmissions community wide, down to a much more personal level. They sold early treatment to Pozzies, by saying it reduced our chance of transmitting HIV to the guys we played with. Now they have proof that TasP does exactly that.

Factors like this can significantly affect your risk

*his most recent illness (even a cold)

*your immune system health

*who is fucking who

*how much he ejaculates

*your rectal health

*STD's you both may have

*size of his penis

*lube or no lube

*how rough the sex is

*how many times you have sex

I think the Partner study rules out pretty much all of your "yea, BUT" situations. I'm sure there were big dicks and little one, colds and flus, tender and rough sex, huge shooters and dribblers, good lube and spit'n'push. There were a significant number of switch hitters, so both positions covered too. And still none of the Neg partners caught HIV from their Poz spouse.

About a third of the gay couples played with other guys, and did it bareback with them too. About half of the couples who had added some spice to their relationship, or had a dish on the side, got STIs. Clearly the STIs didn't significantly affect the viral loads, or increase the likelihood of the Pozzie to transmit.

Some of the Neg guys did turn Poz, but gene sequencing showed their virus COULD NOT have come their Poz spouse.

They don't have quite enough data to feel confident about the Poz top, Neg cum dump scenario. Statistical calculations, using a 95% confidence level, produce theoretical "worst case" risk levels. They need 450 more European gay serodivengent couples, with follow-up until 2017 to understand IF there is any risk. They will probably never be able to prove zero risk. At a press conference after the presentation the head researcher said,they expect the chance of infection to be close to zero, if not exactly zero.

Backup data will come from the Australian "Opposites Attract" study. That study will also look at seminal viral load in some of the Poz partners.

The final results from both studies will be published in 2017.

So drop all this energy you're wasting worrying about the undetectable Pozzie. Put where it belongs

On all the people who you don't ask about their status & the guys who say they are Neg!

[Poz1956]

A few EU countries are soon if not already accepting Blood and body parts from med compliant undectable poz men.

Reading this again, I think i misinterpreted your statement to be talking about the Partner study. (It's such big news that the study is at the front of my mind.)

I see now that you were talking about organ transplants. Sorry! (How Canadian of me to apologist)

Back in November President Obama signed the HOPE act into law. The HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act lifts the ban on research into organ transplants between HIV-positive patients. It sets out guidelines and standards for how the research is to be conducted, and it'll be up to the US Secretary of Health to determine if its outcome gives reason to allow transplant operations to go ahead.

As for blood for transfusions, that does not seem very likely. Considering past incidents back at the beginning of the epidemic, when hemophiliacs and people who received transfusions became Poz, I doubt any blood collection agency would touch that with a ten foot pole. They would need to have a complete separate system, and separate equipment. And even then a pint of Poz could accidentally end up in the same fridge as Neg. It took a long time for those agencies to regain the trust of the public. They wouldn't take the risk.

Transplant organs are in short supply. There is some resistance to "wasting" a Neggies organs on a Poz guy, when it could help a Neg person. Yet Pozzies who would like to donate organs, are forbidden from doing so. Blood for transfusions is not in short supply. Pozzies can take Neg blood with no issue. It just wouldn't make any sense to duplicate a system, and risk the possibility of human error. Someone could easily, accidentally put the wrong bag in the wrong tray.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Poz1956

[wood]

NONE of the HIV Negative partners contracted HIV from their Poz partner, in the first two years of the study. With an estimated 14,400 condomless sex acts in the gay couples and 28,000 from the straight ones, ZERO Negative partners caught HIV from their Positive spouse. In a cumulative 894 Years of follow-up with these couples there was not a single transmission from the Poz mate.

Based on the number and type of sex acts, if the Pozzies had not been under treatment, they would have expected about 86 of the gay neg guys to seroconvert.

This is truly a game changer. It moves TasP (Treatment as Protection) from a Public health initiative that reduces transmissions community wide, down to a much more personal level. They sold early treatment to Pozzies, by saying it reduced our chance of transmitting HIV to the guys we played with. Now they have proof that TasP does exactly that.I think the Partner study rules out pretty much all of your "yea, BUT" situations. I'm sure there were big dicks and little one, colds and flus, tender and rough sex, huge shooters and dribblers, good lube and spit'n'push. There were a significant number of switch hitters, so both positions covered too. And still none of the Neg partners caught HIV from their Poz spouse.

They don't have quite enough data to feel confident about the Poz top, Neg cum dump scenario. Statistical calculations, using a 95% confidence level, produce theoretical "worst case" risk levels. They need 450 more European gay serodivengent couples, with follow-up until 2017 to understand IF there is any risk. They will probably never be able to prove zero risk. At a press conference after the presentation the head researcher said,they expect the chance of infection to be close to zero, if not exactly zero.

On all the people who you don't ask about their status & the guys who say they are Neg!

Agree completely, and just for reference, I typed out my response before the initial results of the PARTNER study were released.

At least for the US, the only issue I really have with the study is making sure that people stay on their medication, especially because it can be very expensive for people in the US. Also I wonder if this information becomes widespread and public if some men who are HIV+ may just start lying about their undetectable status while not really monitoring it. Now obviously I think thats a low priority at this point, but I also think it a may give a bit of false confidence to some people. Relationships are much different than hookups, and the person having sex in a relationship knows a lot more about their partner than the person in a hookup scenario. Don't get me wrong I think this is great news, and I agree that neg guys thinking other "neg" guys who dont get tested are really silly, but just like any new findings I would approach this with caution.

With all that said I am a neg guy who has dated several poz undetectable men, and remain neg. I also did that well before PrEP was around. I have always said that discriminating against poz undetectable guys was extremely stupid. They get checked out way more often than the general population.

[Poz1956]

I know, but the thread was still near the top and being heavily read. Bringing it up to date with the latest research seemed appropriate. And I'm just so excited about the report from the Partner study, I can't stop talking about it, to anyone who'll listen.

Guys who are going to lie about their status, are already doing it, and will continue to do it. Though I agree Partner may encourage more to do so. But I suppose if they are on their meds, and getting regular follow-up, it is the least harmful of the situations you presented. Not morally correct, but not really endangering the Neg guys either. I know that thought will make many a Neg go nuclear, screaming STEALTH, and "We have a Right to Know!"

I've struggled with the morality of "Don't ask - Don't tell," any time I've done it. And that's only been while playing safely. I've got a post over in Poptronic's "What's It Like to Be Poz" | "When does life become normal" thread. In it I give a rough outline of the mental tug-a-war each and every hook-up presents. I haven't played that game in a BB situation yet. Well - I guess I have to fes up to the once in 1992, for a couple of minutes. I didn't cum, and I'm not a huge leaker and, and, and, and! They're all BS self justifications. Considering it was pre-coctail . . . -- I still regret that one. But it did change my behaviour, and I've always had condoms in every coat since that day. Partner does ease my guilt over any BJs I've received, and safe sex DA-DTs I've done in the past, knowing I truly didn't put the guys at even the tiniest amount of any risk.

The situation doesn't really change for the guys who can't stay on their meds, because of complications life throws at them. They're already either saying their Neg, or that they're undetectable. I suspect more the former. Those same "life situations" probably make them more in need of the close human contact, and more easily wounded by the stigma.

The guys who aren't actively getting medical follow-up, and monitoring their viral load are pretty much the same as the above group. Mix two parts denial, and one part Life leading them to where they are today. They're already saying what they're going to say, and Partner won't change it.

I'm of two minds about this study. I want to scream it at the top of my lungs. I want to nail the perverted purveyors of stigma with it, until they've got stigmata. (Some of you will have to look that word up to get the pun.) This is BIG GUN ammunition to shoot back with. Laser guided artillery shells, and military grade GPS smart bombs!

By the same token I want to keep quiet until the final results come out. When they get the confidence level up, and the theoretical risk numbers down, it will be HUGE. But what if there are a few transmissions? I expect we'll be in 40,000 gay BB fucks by then. If we get 11, that's about equivalent to a bottom on PrEP. From what the researches said, I suspect it will be much fewer. (if only my crystal ball would pick lottery numbers that way.)

Then there's the issue of the guys who played BB with others, and became Poz. They're keeping that number under wraps until the end. Considering that almost half of the 3-way/open/cheater guys got STIs and brought it home, I think it's a safe bet that a good chunk of the 'Neg' ones now share their partner's daily trip to the medicine cabinet. The Pozaphobes will seize on that number - minus the facts - and swear it HAD to have come from the original Poz partner.

And back to personal struggle. There's a Neg guy who has been pushing to top me. Last time he was in town he almost weakened my resolve to the point of giving in. In truth, if his net connection hadn't gone down before I got the hotel room number, he would have pumped at least one load into me. Twenty-eight years of "You can never do that" lectures and habits die hard. Before Partner came out, I went back and forth on that one several times a day. Knowing what I know now, can I deny that hot motherfucker his conquest? (Or should that be ME fucker?) I already know the answer, but it still has me quaking in my boots, and my stomach tied in a knot tight enough that I want to puke. Or is that anticipation, and almost virginal stage fright? I want to F U C K him Hard too! But I don't think I can break That mental barrier, so they'll still be a latex barrier between us. Just wish I had some Crown 004's to plow him with.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Poz1956