Those of you not on meds how did your doctors react

[BootmanLA]

18 hours ago, Baresluttybottom said:

yes that would be the general rule but my point is that doctors have an own agenda in which they are trying to get people to take meds....i've had one doctor who on the first visit was asking me about my sex life and when i told him i was doing barebacking with other guys he immediately said that that was a reason to start meds because he didn't want more patients (his own words) ! I told him that it is up to me to decide if i want to take meds and he was really not happy about it and started a discussion in which he tried to talk me down and to force me on meds. I walked away from him and asked for a new doctor because no doctor tells me what i should or shouldn't do. 

My point is yes you have the right to refuse treatment a doctor suggests but it doesn't mean that every doctor respects that....

What you call "have an own agenda" is what a doctor would call "providing the best medical advice possible". As I noted, it's like a cardiologist telling an obese chain-smoker that he needs to lose weight, exercise, and quit smoking. The "agenda" is keeping the patient alive.

You are free, of course, to not be interested in keeping yourself alive, but in that case, one might reasonably question why you're seeing a doctor in the first place. And while you don't have to follow a doctor's advice - millions of dead people with heart disease and lung cancer did not follow medical advice to quit smoking, for instance - that does not mean he's supposed to shut up and never give advice as to what he thinks you should do for your health.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

What you call "have an own agenda" is what a doctor would call "providing the best medical advice possible". As I noted, it's like a cardiologist telling an obese chain-smoker that he needs to lose weight, exercise, and quit smoking. The "agenda" is keeping the patient alive.

You are free, of course, to not be interested in keeping yourself alive, but in that case, one might reasonably question why you're seeing a doctor in the first place. And while you don't have to follow a doctor's advice - millions of dead people with heart disease and lung cancer did not follow medical advice to quit smoking, for instance - that does not mean he's supposed to shut up and never give advice as to what he thinks you should do for your health.

I think you misinterpreted my words......i never said you should never listen to your doctors advice.  On the other hand your example of heart disease can be said for thousands of conditions like cancer and lung diseases. Also those examples are things that can make your life actually better by doing the work and without the assistance of meds unlike HIV. 

Also i never said that i don't want to be alive ! What i said was that me taking meds would hit quality of life just as hard as without so what is the upside ?! none with the exception that i may life a few years longer with meds.  My point was that doctors have a second agenda besides having your health in mind, it's called damage control. Meds are also meant to bring a halt to the hiv epidemic by getting to zero cases, that's why they want you on meds as well. And before you say that's not true one doctor told me those exact words after asking about my sex life so that's what i mean by them having an agenda. 

[BootmanLA]

12 hours ago, Baresluttybottom said:

On the other hand your example of heart disease can be said for thousands of conditions like cancer and lung diseases.

Very true, and I'd give the same response to anyone whose issue involved medical recommendations for those or other diseases. For instance, I would expect a person with Type 2 Diabetes to be advised by his physician to reduce sugar intake as much as possible, including carbohydrates that break down into glucose, whether or not that person "wanted" to be advised to cut back on sugar. He's free to ignore that advice, but an ethical doctor will remind his patients of his best medical judgment.

12 hours ago, Baresluttybottom said:

Also those examples are things that can make your life actually better by doing the work and without the assistance of meds unlike HIV. 

Whether it's a medication or a lifestyle change isn't particularly relevant for a doctor's ethical obligation to advise his patient as to his best medical options. 

12 hours ago, Baresluttybottom said:

Also i never said that i don't want to be alive ! What i said was that me taking meds would hit quality of life just as hard as without so what is the upside ?! none with the exception that i may life a few years longer with meds.  My point was that doctors have a second agenda besides having your health in mind, it's called damage control. Meds are also meant to bring a halt to the hiv epidemic by getting to zero cases, that's why they want you on meds as well. And before you say that's not true one doctor told me those exact words after asking about my sex life so that's what i mean by them having an agenda. 

This is a lot to unpack, but I'll give it a shot.

1. HIV medications are not "trivial" in terms of effect on your body, but they're also not, for most people, the havoc-wreaking toxic cocktails they once were. The majority of people on most HIV medications experience few if any side effects, so I call "bullshit" on the idea that they "hit quality life just as hard as without." That may be the case for the rare individual, but that person won't know unless & until he experiences those side effects.

2. "A few years longer" is relative. A person who becomes HIV positive at, say, age 24 is generally unlikely to live past 40 without treatment, perhaps considerably less. If he goes on medications reasonably soon after infection, or when his immune system begins to show signs of stress, he could well live to be 80. Obviously some will live longer than others without meds, some people on meds will die of other causes, and so forth, but all other things being equal, antiviral therapy could well extend a lifespan to its otherwise normal length, and a shift in expectancy from (as in this example) 40 to 80 is not "a few years longer". Now, if you're already 65 when you're first infected, and you have a history of other health complications anyway, yes, maybe it might seem like not a lot of gain.

3. And I'll concede that doctors want to reduce the prevalence of HIV, because it's an infectious disease. Spread of infectious diseases can be calculated by the risk factor of a particular act (ie anal sex with an unmedicated poz person) multiplied by the rate of partner change (the more men an infected person has sex with, the greater the possibility of spread) multiplied by the prevalence of the unchecked disease in the community (if there are lots of people already infected, the rate of spread will be exponentially larger than if it's very limited). Getting that final number down - through treatment that renders people undetectable - means fewer other people have to face the choice and outlook you do. OF COURSE doctors want to see the prevalence of disease reduced - why wouldn't they? Their entire profession's existence is predicated on healing people and keeping them healthy. That's not some secret, hidden agenda. It's like saying auto mechanics have an agenda of their own to make cars run better and more safely. 

[Guest hungandmean]

18 hours ago, Baresluttybottom said:

I think you misinterpreted my words......i never said you should never listen to your doctors advice.  On the other hand your example of heart disease can be said for thousands of conditions like cancer and lung diseases. Also those examples are things that can make your life actually better by doing the work and without the assistance of meds unlike HIV. 

Also i never said that i don't want to be alive ! What i said was that me taking meds would hit quality of life just as hard as without so what is the upside ?! none with the exception that i may life a few years longer with meds.  My point was that doctors have a second agenda besides having your health in mind, it's called damage control. Meds are also meant to bring a halt to the hiv epidemic by getting to zero cases, that's why they want you on meds as well. And before you say that's not true one doctor told me those exact words after asking about my sex life so that's what i mean by them having an agenda. 

Allow me to be frank here - 

Taking HIV meds will make your life *actually* better. Know why? Because without them you will get AIDS. 

You do NOT understand how fucking sick, and miserable, you can get with it. You could not imagine the things it will do to your body. You cannot fathom the fucked up diseases and illnesses you'll get. Doctors won't be able to help you either because its fucking 2020 and they aren't familiar with assisting patients with extremely high viral loads and low CD4 counts. 

Of course doctors are concerned with your welfare, and the public health. Damage control? Zero cases? Why the hell would a doctor go into treating infectious diseases if not to stop the spread of them? 

Oh my god their nefarious agenda of... not letting people die of treatable illnesses. Better watch out! They're getting rich off of the backs of.... nothing... because infectious disease doctors don't make the kind of money any of their colleagues do. What are you even implying? 

Get tested. Take your fucking meds. Or enjoy dying of a painful rare form of cancer no ones seen since the AIDS crisis and getting the Darwin Award you deserve. 

 

[ejaculaTe]

1 hour ago, hungandmean said:

You do NOT understand how fucking sick, and miserable, you can get with it. You could not imagine the things it will do to your body. You cannot fathom the fucked up diseases and illnesses you'll get. Doctors won't be able to help you either because its fucking 2020 and they aren't familiar with assisting patients with extremely high viral loads and low CD4 counts. 

 

@hungandmean is absolutely spot on. If you were born after, say 1995, you're not very likely to know what the 1980s and 1990s were like for gay men whose t-cell counts were under 100. But you should thank God every friggin' day for giving you a chance that they never had. 

[BootmanLA]

1 hour ago, hungandmean said:

Doctors won't be able to help you either because its fucking 2020 and they aren't familiar with assisting patients with extremely high viral loads and low CD4 counts. 

I'd only quibble with this one statement. It's true that doctors "writ large" don't have a lot of experience assisting such patients. But HIV specialists do, or at least many do; and it's dramatic how much can still be done even after a guy has let his health deteriorate dramatically. That's not to suggest people SHOULD wait, but there are doctors in most major metro areas, at least, who know how to treat such patients.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, hungandmean said:

Get tested. Take your fucking meds. Or enjoy dying of a painful rare form of cancer no ones seen since the AIDS crisis and getting the Darwin Award you deserve.

Don't know in which remote part of the world you have been living but people are STILL dying of AIDS every day !! Even in Western society people still die of AIDS today !! It may be less so than say in Africa but AIDS is still here. So those rare forms of cancer you talk about are not so rare at all and still present themselves in patients today so don't talk as if you have all the facts right because you don't. Plus i am trying to have a civil conversation here but you take a whole new level of bitchy !

 

10 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

HIV medications are not "trivial" in terms of effect on your body, but they're also not, for most people, the havoc-wreaking toxic cocktails they once were. The majority of people on most HIV medications experience few if any side effects, so I call "bullshit" on the idea that they "hit quality life just as hard as without." That may be the case for the rare individual, but that person won't know unless & until he experiences those side effects.

They are not as toxic as they once were but they still have an enormous list of possible side-effects. And if you have not experienced these side-effects like i did how can you call bullshit huh ?!  let's see.....migraines, heavy coughing, muscle pains, joint stiffness, fatigue , diarrhea , pain in the intestines , skin rashes that hurt so bad you feel like you are on fire and don't get me started on the psychological effects of those meds. You don't know me but stand to judge me ??!! No you don't.......i've tried various meds and still the same outcome in side-effects. Hell i'm even HLA-57 positive so i'm not allowed to take some meds because they are poison for me...get the picture ?! They may not be life altering to you but for me that takes down quality of life by a large margin. 

Also let me make this clear.....i'm NOT against meds. Take them and be healthy and go on living.......for me it isn't that simple but i'll leave this topic alone because i'm the bad guy who is so stupid because he's refusing to take meds 🙄 

[drscorpio]

Moderator's Note: Everyone please dial it back a few notches. If you cannot discuss this topic calmly and without making personal attacks on other posters, please stop posting in this thread. 

[BootmanLA]

13 hours ago, Baresluttybottom said:

Also let me make this clear.....i'm NOT against meds. Take them and be healthy and go on living.......for me it isn't that simple but i'll leave this topic alone because i'm the bad guy who is so stupid because he's refusing to take meds 🙄 

Dude - I have repeatedly stated, over and over, that I respect your right to refuse medical advice and to stay off meds. I'm not attacking you; I'm defending the doctor(s) you're attacking for "having an agenda". Denigrating doctors for, well, being doctors - which includes providing the best medical advice they know - seems like kind of a dick move to me. I get that for you, meds may present issues that most people don't face, but to rail on the doctors (possibly discouraging them from being aggressive in treating OTHER people who don't have the "these are toxic to my system" rationale) goes beyond looking out for yourself.

[wood]

A good doctor knows how to respect someone, and still give advice. 
 

let’s flip this around a bit. Plenty of smokers have got lung cancer from smoking, and many still don’t quit even after they know or start treatment. Or a diabetic that still eats way too much sugar and knows it’s endangering their health. Those things are not that far off from a person with HIV who chooses not to start medication right away. 
 

However, at a certain point, if it’s obvious the person is dying and still denies treatment, they may be looking at a psych evaluation and involuntary treatment methods. 
 

Good docs know when, what and how to push people. Sometimes it’s really small steps, like asking an alcoholic to maybe drink more beer and wine instead of spirits. Or asking an addict to try snorting a drug instead of injecting.  With HIV, if a person doesn’t want to start meds, okay! But let’s see you every few months and see where you are at. 
 

I have two friends that were infected around 19, and refused treatment, but their docs listened to them, and slowly built up a report and a relationship. It took both of them a health scare but by 27, both were on treatment. It’s not ideal, but you also can’t force people. 

[Guest FinalDL2021]

On 9/26/2020 at 6:20 AM, skylon said:

Good question...Now that it is universally recommended that those with HIV go on meds how does one deal with docs if you refuse to take meds?

This is the dilemma I face next, recently tested Positive, and would like to go, the no meds route first.  I will be going to my 2nd Dr. appt, and feel if I don't put up any objections, I am on the way to being put on Meds. I Like the health insurance that I have, and don't want to be on their bad side, yet I am sure they are not going to be thrilled with my No meds, choice; I know my primary physician is pissed at me, for being Positive, when she thought I was prescribed Prep. 

[Guest PhillyBBGuy]

10 hours ago, PozGingerPubes said:

This is the dilemma I face next, recently tested Positive, and would like to go, the no meds route first.  I will be going to my 2nd Dr. appt, and feel if I don't put up any objections, I am on the way to being put on Meds. I Like the health insurance that I have, and don't want to be on their bad side, yet I am sure they are not going to be thrilled with my No meds, choice; I know my primary physician is pissed at me, for being Positive, when she thought I was prescribed Prep. 

Do you have any interest in pozzing a neg guy?

[SmoothATLVers]

On 10/1/2020 at 12:36 PM, wood said:

A good doctor knows how to respect someone, and still give advice. 
 

let’s flip this around a bit. Plenty of smokers have got lung cancer from smoking, and many still don’t quit even after they know or start treatment. Or a diabetic that still eats way too much sugar and knows it’s endangering their health. Those things are not that far off from a person with HIV who chooses not to start medication right away. 
 

However, at a certain point, if it’s obvious the person is dying and still denies treatment, they may be looking at a psych evaluation and involuntary treatment methods. 
 

Good docs know when, what and how to push people. Sometimes it’s really small steps, like asking an alcoholic to maybe drink more beer and wine instead of spirits. Or asking an addict to try snorting a drug instead of injecting.  With HIV, if a person doesn’t want to start meds, okay! But let’s see you every few months and see where you are at. 
 

I have two friends that were infected around 19, and refused treatment, but their docs listened to them, and slowly built up a report and a relationship. It took both of them a health scare but by 27, both were on treatment. It’s not ideal, but you also can’t force people. 

Very good analogies. Can't force folks to do what they don't want to. 

[backpackguy]

11 hours ago, PozGingerPubes said:

This is the dilemma I face next, recently tested Positive, and would like to go, the no meds route first.  I will be going to my 2nd Dr. appt, and feel if I don't put up any objections, I am on the way to being put on Meds. I Like the health insurance that I have, and don't want to be on their bad side, yet I am sure they are not going to be thrilled with my No meds, choice; I know my primary physician is pissed at me, for being Positive, when she thought I was prescribed Prep. 

PozGinger, maybe it's time to find a new doc...preferably gay. I have Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO as my health insurance. Sure, a little more pricey but it "opens all doors!" I get my all my health care from Stanford (University) Health. A year ago I had to change docs since mine went into medical administration. I took the opportunity to ask for a gay doc. I am now in Stanford's LGBTQ program w/a gay doc...best decision I made in a long time. I talk freely w/no holding back unlike my previous straight doc. And yes, like you, I live in the SF Bay Area! We are blessed that there are a good amount of gay docs in the Bay Area.

[J0nn1eb0y]

On 9/28/2020 at 11:02 PM, BootmanLA said:

What you call "have an own agenda" is what a doctor would call "providing the best medical advice possible". As I noted, it's like a cardiologist telling an obese chain-smoker that he needs to lose weight, exercise, and quit smoking. The "agenda" is keeping the patient alive.

 

@bootmanLA and @baresluttybottom 

Doctors do take the hippocratic oath so @bootmanLA your response has some validity.

@bootmanLA Doctors are a business and also have biases and agendas. Case in point the US  has 4-5% of the worlds population yet we consume 95% of ALL prescribed medications. We are the ONLY country which allows "ask your doctor or pharmacist". Big pharma influences many many things. Did all the Oxy's which were prescribed by doctors needed? Probably not.