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Posted
1) Go get tested. Today. And then do it again and again as recommended by your clinic. Know your status and act accordingly.

I don't think I'll do that. Actually I don't want to know when I'm poz...

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Posted
I don't think I'll do that. Actually I don't want to know when I'm poz...

I understand the reasons for not knowing. But here's how I look at it: if I have HIV, I'll either discover it while I'm healthy enough to maintain it for decades, or I'll discover it in a few years time when I get sick, perhaps become permanently disabled or perhaps even die. Under which scenario do I get to go out and have much, MUCH more hot raw sex? It ain't the one where I'm six feet under....

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Posted
I understand the reasons for not knowing. But here's how I look at it: if I have HIV, I'll either discover it while I'm healthy enough to maintain it for decades, or I'll discover it in a few years time when I get sick, perhaps become permanently disabled or perhaps even die. Under which scenario do I get to go out and have much, MUCH more hot raw sex? It ain't the one where I'm six feet under....

Well put.

When you look at the data the people who are dying of AIDS these days fall into two categories - 1) People who've been poz for a long time and are dealing with problems that started before they starting taking modern ARVs and 2) People who don't get tested and don't find out until it's too late and HIV has totally fucked up their immune system. Notice both groups are people who took ARVs after the damage had been done.

So get tested - at least every couple years (preferably every year). You can live a very long life if you know your poz and do what your doctor tells you to do. That's not something to be scared of.

Posted
I understand the reasons for not knowing. But here's how I look at it: if I have HIV, I'll either discover it while I'm healthy enough to maintain it for decades, or I'll discover it in a few years time when I get sick, perhaps become permanently disabled or perhaps even die. Under which scenario do I get to go out and have much, MUCH more hot raw sex? It ain't the one where I'm six feet under....

Sorry, I was a few days away.....

You're right, but now I don't want to know if I'm already poz...

Posted
Sorry, I was a few days away.....

You're right, but now I don't want to know if I'm already poz...

As long as that decision is a temporary one, I think it's fair enough. Hell, I used to go for quite some time between HIV tests. In my case, I knew it was a matter of not wanting to know because that allowed me to tell myself that I was healthy. I was, to a large extent, sticking my head in the sand and hoping that if I ignored the possibility of infection, it wouldn't happen.

I can only tell you that my experience of discovering my status, the diagnosis that I had been dreading for quite some time (but not enough to change my habits) has turned out to be a good thing in retrospect in many ways. Was it still a bit of a shock, even after years of indiscriminate barebacking? Yes, it was. In hindsight, it took me far longer than I expected to come to terms with it.

But I would not give up that experience for anything. Personally, I think I have made many changes in my life for the better as a result. I also think that I enjoy sex considerably more too. I've personally found my diagnosis to be actually kind of liberating in many ways.

Any big life change like HIV is going to have both negative and positive impacts. It's not all bad, nor does it necessarily mean that life will get worse (although it might mean that if left untreated). It does mean that things will change. But I have decided (in part as a result of this experience) that change is not something to be feared and often something to be embraced.

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Posted

[i just broke these posts off into their own thread so we didn't have two different discussions going on at the same time.]

TwinkCC raises an interesting dilemma - with kids start to bareback when they're very young it's pretty complicated for them when it comes to STDs and the like. In other posts he's said he started barebacking at 13. So what does someone like him do for the next 5 or 6 years before they're out from under their parent's watchful eye? OK, the parent might not be that watchful - they don't know their kid is getting loads of cum in their ass, but they will find out if the kid gets an STD or tests poz. If they're in a major city there will probably be a clinic they can go to for confidential medical care (here in NYC Callen Lorde has the HOTT program for teens), but what if the kid isn't in a major city and only has access to the family doctor?

No wonder some of them don't want to know - they think the social impact with their family is far worse than anything HIV can do. But the problem is that if they got HIV early (at 13 or 14) they'll be waiting too long to get diagnosed and it will really have a huge impact on their health and life expectancy.

Posted

At the moment I've only access to the family doctor and if I'd made a test there my parents would know that because of the insurance...

I think, there isn't a big risk to be poz so I don't want go to the doctor so that my parents will know this...

  • 3 months later...
Posted

I was hospitalized and diagosed. It was concluded that it was 'old' infection, meaning several years old. That means that I had a false negative test a year earlier.

  • 3 months later...
Guest TravelGuy4Bareback
Posted

Where I live there was an Air Force Sargent who was married and went to swinger parties. He wouldn't tell anyone he was Poz, even when asked. His wife finally turned him in to the Air Force Police. He was just found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in military prison.

They interviewed local HIV/AIDS groups who want to decimalize HIV infection. They feel by making it a crime to expose someone to HIV it is making people not get tested. Then they don't know they have HIV, therefore they can not be charged with any crime. They feel if it wasn't a crime, people would get tested and then start meds. I see both sides. Not sure what the right answer is.

Guest TravelGuy4Bareback
Posted

Anyone have a link to the home kit you can order that looks like a home pregnancy test? The link was on bugshare when it worked.

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