Is there anyone who are still around after getting pozzed during the crisis in the 80s

[hntnhole]

Thanks for the illuminating response, AlwaysOpen.  It's important to understand that these things can present (or not) in differing ways: there's no cut & dried, across-the-board answer.  We're all different, and we all need professional attention tailored to our particular situations.  To me, that means keeping appointments without fail, doing what the medical professionals tell me to do without exception.  Each guy's body can react differently. 

Sorry about the banana too ..... 

[HardOneLA]

18 hours ago, AlwaysOpen said:

I had an allergic reaction to a banana Jan 1987- landed in the ER via ambulance( my BP at the minor emergency clinic that I drove to was 70 over 40 and unsteady) The clinic hit me with 6 shots of epinephrine and 6 shots of diphenhydramine, so I was pretty much floating for a few hours,luckily. One thing that was very common in the 80's, when a single 30 and older man had any medical crisis was to assume it was AIDS.I recall some nurse pushing a hollow needle into that spot on the wrist/thumb juncture to draw bone marrow for testing. He was apologizing about how uncomfortable it was, but I was so deep in shock and drugged from the clinic that I felt nothing. A week later, the cardiologist who had been my ER doctor called me and told me to come in to his office, the results were in ( in those words, I was already planning how many weeks I had left)  And then the next day I got pissed at getting that type of a phone call, and pissed at how biased the medical industry was to gay men at the time. I went to  the docs office, got the news, he followed up with a Western Blot test, and I learned my viral load was 84,000 and my T count was 45. AZT was the killer drug they pushed back then. I had been keeping a ledger sheet with the names of friends and the date of their death already, and already had 15 to 20 names init. I refused going on any meds. The only complication I had for 12 years med free was a case of walking pneumonia, and probably came down with it as a result of working a full time job and then at night working another 5 to 6 hours at a part time job out in the weather. 

When I eventually did go on meds it was late 1999 and the first generation  of anti retro viral med combo's was just coming of age- drugs like epivir, viramune, etc. Once I began meds, I was laser focused on following the dosing schedule and not missing a dose. I have gotten on Dovato recently, 1 pill a day with just 2 drugs combined init, and have to say, I feel healthier than ever before. I cannot stress it enough tho- I believe the most important thing is and was  making it a priority to never forget to take the meds exactly as prescribed. 

I lost a 85 year old poz friend 11 months ago. He had  been in NYC in the 70's and 80's , even working the door at Rawhide for a while. He lived in Greenwich Village, went to a lot of the bars ( ahh, the MineShaft !! lol) and parties, and mid 80's he tested poz.  I knew him the last 20 years of his life, and he was healthy and on meds. He even got covid twice, and neitherr time was it more than a cold that dragged on for a week  or so. Being poz/AIDS didn't kill him, he made a left at a light and got slammed by an oncoming car. I mention his case, because for a lot of you  neg guys, hearing  a poz result from a blood test is not probably the thing that will kill you one day. ESPECIALLY if you monitor your health and stick to the  dosing schedule of the HIV drug you will eventually go on.

Am so glad you lived to tell the tale, as well as your many other great posts.  It took a lot of guts to not jump on AZT back then.  Sadly, being on it negated the ability to go on the new "cocktails" when they came out.

[faggotsub]

i got diagnosed in 1994...it was a death sentense then..i remember what the doctor said  "We'll make sure your not in any pain till the end"  

although i wasn't surprised it hit me hard emotionally at the time..as i grew accoustomed to it i remember telling people close to me,  i just wanted to make it till 2000 the turn of the century

i entered into a experimental study associated with proteins at Beth Israel in Boston but never heard any results

AZT came along and then the cocktail,   my CD's were always above 1200 and have remained so. I feel like shit a lot of the time i suspect from the drugs and i certainly have wasting associated with taking the drugs..  my ass for the most part resides in my stomach but it doesn't seem to matter much, at least it didnt to the DOM that ate HIS cum out of it an hour ago.

i was told i could go on disablity at any time but didn't until the company i worked for was sold in 2003 and rode that out. 

i didnt go looking for aids but little did i know how the hunger would grow for poz seed over the years to the point id go off meds to get knocked up again  Dont know why but i always feel better physically when I get a poz load...maybe it' in my head but if it is thats ok 

Still healthy but i feel like shit every morning when i wake up  ..don't know if its true but the Doc says she thinks its from the drugs

[Oldercumslut]

I have a couple of patients who have been around since then.   All generally healthy.

[Bimarried001]

On 12/11/2022 at 3:44 AM, IrishKinkSlut said:

Curious to knw if there is anyone still about that got infected back in the 80's or 90's at the peak of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. I was not alive back then but I have done a lot of research into that time and the fights that so many people went through. Would love to know

🤚🏾I’m still around. Got pozzed in the early 80s and I’m still around. 

[Pozguyinchi]

On 12/12/2022 at 6:08 AM, NudistBBBLK said:

I have many older poz friends who were diagnosed in 80s and 90s and they often tell me it was a traumatic experience as friends and fuck buds died left and right & no one was doing anything about it & they themselves often left worried when their day will come. 
 

I remember when I decided to go raw in the early 2000s and how some of them gave me a stern warning not to do it. I took their advice in consideration but I felt if I became poz I would be ok as meds were good 

I try not to discuss HIV with guys from the 80’s. It’s like talking war with someone that has been in combat. I am glad I converted when I did. 

[muscmtl]

5 hours ago, Pozguyinchi said:

I try not to discuss HIV with guys from the 80’s. It’s like talking war with someone that has been in combat. I am glad I converted when I did. 

Hell yes. Pozed in 84. And there s shit load of us. And i mean 100k and more. That's the real dirty secret that no one wants to talk about, the fact that so many of us survived, which damper the dramaqueen need for drama

[ErikRaw]

I got pozzed in April '91.  Not quite the 80s but still a 30+ year survivor.

Once the cocktails became available (around 96 or 97) attitudes lightened up.  But still a lot who hold into the trauma and loss of the 80s, i guess.

[BradStevens]

I've probably been HIV+  36 or 37 years. I tested positive in April 1990 but I'm sure I had been positive for a few years before that. I lived in NYC from summer 1986 - summer 1987 and had A LOT of bareback sex there. Of course, we didn't call it that then. We just thought of it as sex. 

[BradStevens]

4 hours ago, muscmtl said:

Hell yes. Pozed in 84. And there s shit load of us. And i mean 100k and more. That's the real dirty secret that no one wants to talk about, the fact that so many of us survived, which damper the dramaqueen need for drama

It's important to explore WHY those of us who survived, did survive. In 1996 a doctor put me on AZT and after six months I felt sicker than I had ever felt in my life and had a metallic taste in my mouth at all time. To his chagrin I stopped told him that I couldn't continue to take medication and I believe that saved my life.

[SpectreAgent]

41 minutes ago, BradStevens said:

It's important to explore WHY those of us who survived, did survive. In 1996 a doctor put me on AZT and after six months I felt sicker than I had ever felt in my life and had a metallic taste in my mouth at all time. To his chagrin I stopped told him that I couldn't continue to take medication and I believe that saved my life.

My ex’s former partner was on AZT and my ex swears to this day that it rotted him from within. 

[SFCumdog]

I lived in a smaller city and was partnered. Never thought I'd get it, and played relatively safely. The only people in my area that seemed to be dying of it at the time were IV drug users and Haitians. So it was a complete surprise to me when I was diagnosed in '97. Years later a very well known doctor in SF told me that, based on my condition at the time of diagnosis, I had probably converted 9 to 10 years earlier. So that means '87 or '88.  I'm glad I didn't know because I'd probably be dead. And the weird thing is that there were enough medical issues during that decade that a savvy doctor should have recognized that there was something more going on. Yet none of them did. But here I am all these years later still relatively healthy with regards to the HIV, but facing other conditions related to getting older.

[Bimarried001]

To think back of how many pills I had to take, and twice a day. Now I just take one in the morning and that’s it. No side effect. I got it early to mid 80s and at the time I never thought I’d be alive today. 

[SomewhereonNeptune]

So here’s a follow-up question: How many of those who’ve been HIV positive since the 80’s or early 90’s are around today despite not being on meds? I’ve heard of a few who are healthy going on 30+ years without a medical regimen, but wonder how much the exception that is.

[tboyer]

An old blood sample from 82 was tested and it was poz, So I converted late 70' or very early 80's, Some of the guys I dated in the late 70's died of AIDS 

in the early 80's and when one considers that it's around 10 or 12 years before symptoms manifest, I was probably pozzed in the late 70's