New-Worried-Still Wants It-Std-Superinfection-Vaseline

[BrokenCondom]

Hey Guys,

 

I've been reading the posts here and to my surprise, they are very well moderated and many members here are very matured and professional (and nasty kinky pigs, respectively). Being a newbie, I'd appreciate your insight. I found out that I got HIV in June 2014 (along with diagnosed with secondary Syphilis and treated with a one-time penicillin injection in the ass) and now(Jan 2015) just achieved UD.

 

Still clearing from recent fresh Syphilis, Gono, and Hepes (Feb 2015). My doctor said I should remain abstinence until I'm all cleared (since Syphilis takes 3-4 months, I assume it'd be until my next follow up in next month). I've made up my mind to just settle with Fort Troff toys and some good porns like Viral Load and Breeding Season from now on till I'm cleared (or possible forever ), because Penicillin's a bitch!

 

 I wonder if you could share with me your opinion on a few things below:

 

1. Various researches and articles on super-infection risks, admittedly mention that there are no evidences suggesting that people living with HIV who are on successful HAART treatment, are at risk of super-infection despite having unsafe penetrative sex with those who are on successful HAART treatment and/or HIV infected individuals who are not on HAART treatment. What is your take on this?

 

2. If it is true, does that explain why bareback sex parties amongst HIV positive men (i.e. POZ parties) are rapidly growing worldwide because, besides contracting other STIs and STDs, there is no worry of super-infection for HIV positive men who are on successful HAART treatment to be participating in such activities?

 

3. How do you guys manage your STDs being bathhouse whores & cumdumps?(which by the way I am deeply guilty of). It seems so easy to contract these nasty bugs. I am so worried when my health care provider told me (as he injects me with Penicillin), "Bro, you need to use condoms. You are getting another Syphilis within 6 months since you got your injection. If the duration of re-occurrence is so close, the damage in your body continues and eventually you will get NeuroSyphilis." 

 

4. I bumped into an all-loads-are-welcome Cumdump recently and asked him how he deals with STDs. He said, "Vaseline. It coats your ass so no STDs have the chance to go in". And he said he never had STD before (which I doubt). Wonder anyone is doing the same or experienced it first hand that it doesn't work?

 

 

CumDump Whore,

 

BrokenCondom

[bearbandit]

Super-infection or re-infection, where two different strains combine to produce a strain with combined mutations of both strains, is so rare that in a world population of 34,000,000 PwHIV, it's reckon to happen maybe two or three times a year. If someone's on successful ARV treatment (in the UK we tend to use HAART to refer to the "second generation" drugs like old-style ritonavir) then they aren't infectious as it's estimated to take a viral load of at least 1000 to establish an infection, and the "success" point of ARV treatment is achieving a viral load less than 70 to 20, depending on the lab your clinic uses. Well below the infectious point. I'd note that in the PARTNER study, where they're looking at magnetic couples they define "undetectable" as 200 viral particles per millilitre of blood. The only serconversions that have happened there have been after the negative partner has played away from home.

Think of the success of PrEP and how rare (and doubtful) the very few seroconversions have been. Someone being treated successfully for HIV not only isn't infectious, but they're also on a kind of "super-PrEP": Guys on PrEP are taking just two ARVs (tenofovir and emtricitabine), where as for successful treatment the general rule is three ARVs, from at least two different drug families. Truvada (the drug used for PrEP, though there are others in the pipeline) offers its protection through two nukes: treatment using truvada a protease inhibitor or an integrase inhibitor (the commonest class outside of the various nukes) as well. So a few loads containing HIV don't stand a chance. Personally I have no problems with taking a load from a guy with a high viral load because even though I'm on salvage therapy, I know that the drugs I can take are more than enough to deal with a different strain.

If you think that bareback parties are a recent phenomenon, you're mistaken: I was barebacking in the eighties with other poz guys (then it was a sense of "nothing to lose" because there was only the one drug available) and continued until I ran up against old-style ritonavir, one of whose side effects was akin to chemical castration. Please note that ritonavir was re-formulated in the 00's and the dose greatly reduced, so its only side effect of note now is causing problems with lipids (high cholesterol) and blood glucose levels.

Managing STIs is more important for guys who are poz because they can cause more problems than usual, and can help HIV along, meaning that your viral load can rise and your CD4 drop (it's not uncommon for someone to get HIV along with gonorrhoea or syphilis, the latter being the one that helps HIV along the most). Basically, the way to deal with STIs is to have regular checkups: in the seventies we used to reckon on every three months and more often if you'd hit lucky, as well, of course, at any point when we thought we might have picked something up or got one of those bloody phone calls that started "I've just been to the clinic and..." In the UK, STI checks go along with HIV checkups.

 

You health care provider sounds somewhat judgmental to me (well, I know my HIV doctor wouldn't have phrased it that way!). Normally, you'd expect to be non-infectious once the chancres have gone and the penicillin has done its work, but he's right about the cumulative effects of syphilis. It puts a massive strain on everybody, poz or not, and is all the worse because if the initial stages manifest inside your ass, you're not going to know about it. If I had a penny for every bottom guy who's not discovered he has syphilis till it's progressed to secondary...

 

Would that Vaseline worked as your mate suggests! Frankly, he's living in cloud-cuckoo land. It might coat the ass (that's what it's meant to do in this context), but with the slightest disturbance from even a finger, assuming you managed complete coverage in the first place, and there's a gap a mile wide as far as microbes are concerned and the vaseline, getting churned up as you get fucked, is actually going to help the microbes stay in contact with the lining of your ass. Vaseline went out of favour as a lube in the seventies or earlier precisely because it made clap etc easier to get. I strongly advise you to go for the every three month (or less) checkup route, and stick to lubes other than vaseline. You might want to tell this to the guy who told you about it...

[LKMike]

Hi bearbandit.

 

Was just wondering if you would expand a little on this comment?

" So a few loads containing HIV don't stand a chance. "

 

As a PrEP user, i am still a little confused by all the suggestions on how it works. One poster on hear said that if one was bottoms up taking loads all evening that PrEP would basically become less effective with each load. i thought its failure would be in not protecting against a specific strain, rather than it acting like a sponge like barrier that once it reaches capacity it can not defend a cell anymore until it has dealt with the hiv its already dealing with?

[bearbandit]

The truvada penetrates deeply into many tissues, including all the ones liable to comes into contact with HIV as a result of taking loads containing HIV. That's why you have a "pre-loading" period when you start with truvada (7 days for anal sex, 20 days for vaginal), and top it up daily to keep the drug at optimal levels within your system. It takes HIV about 3 days to establish itself inside a new host, which is why the cut-off point for PEP is three days: after that point HIV is there and unmoving. To be honest, your question demands greater knowledge of the maths of probability than I have ever had (but then I have difficulties with my credit card).

 

The way I understand it is that tenofovir is one of the fastest drugs at lowering the viral load in someone with HIV and emtricitabine is more of a detail merchant, picking up the little that tenofovir didn't get.  Both drugs interfere with the virus' replication by inhibiting the production of the enzyme transcriptase in different ways, with transcriptase being essential for HIV to get itself into the DNA of a CD4 cell. So truvada creates an environment inimical to HIV's reproduction. It's not a case of one drug molecule for each HIV particle. Even if it were, the guy taking loads would die of exhaustion before exhausting the drugs.

Where the maths comes in is in the possibility of drug failure (which is pretty damn low providing you're taking it as prescribed) and/or the possibility of of getting fucked by someone who <a> has a high enough viral load and <b> has virus that's resistant to both tenofovir and emtricitabine. Way more people have had to come off one or other drug because of side effects rather than resistance as resistance is pretty rare.

 

The drugs don't come with a "good for protection against X poz loads per day" sticker... Sorry, that's as far as I can take it. Are there a microbiologist and a mathematician in the house?

[LKMike]

Thanks. Guess its still smoke and mirrors lol. Still taking poz loads though and still find it one of the biggest adrenaline rushes ever!

[seaguy]

Social media and more people being online from their smart phones has made advertising and finding bareback sex parties easier.

[bearbandit]

And once you've found one party you get to hear about others...

[BrokenCondom]

Thanks bearbandit for the detailed and clear explanation as always. I'm taking Combivir and Stocrin for now. I'm in Malaysia. I have a buddy who had the same cocktail as me, but changed to Tenvir-Em and Combivir when he went to UK to continue his studies. He said UK's medical is impressive and bloody efficient. The doctors, counselors and staffs are very supportive of his condition and health. I'm considering to work abroad;first choice was US. But it seems UK is more attractive in terms of medical treatment as it's free.

And yea like seaguy said, technology has definitely made it easier for us to get into parties. That's how my bareback journey started in this conservative country.

[Guest]

The original post here commented on Vaseline as lube to coat the inside of the ass and prevent  possible STIs.  Sounds like a myth, but curious if anyone has any actual knowledge about that.  I love fucking a bottom that's packed full of vaseline - I also love a bottom that just asks me to spit soak him and slide in balls deep, so just depends.  On my one visit to cumunion so far, I did lube my hole up with vaseline just to be pre-lubed, nothing to do with this.  But I'd stay pre-lubed all the time if there was an added benefit