Hiv and U+

[Bolwjr]

I've seen postings stating U+=Untransmittable. My question is there a research of how many guys were on prep before becoming positive and shouldn't the number of positive people start to reduce with the widespread number of people using Prep. 

I would enjoy taking a chance with a person who hiv status is known and under control but it appears to be common to see profiles stating U+=Untransmittable. 

How come it appears that the rate of HIV is still increasing even with the availability of PREP.  Can someone please explain. 

[Fprefect570]

HIV diagnosis decreased and then shot upward after 2022 probably because the lack of testing facilities being open and being able to process lab results. It has been on a steady decrease for well over decade before that.

U=Untransmittable like it says. The viral count is so low it's astronomical chance that they would be able to transmit HIV.

IMO Hiv positive people are some of the safest people to have sex with because they are way more likely to be tested regularly.

[Bolwjr]

Thank you for your response. I'm a member of several sex sites and became aware that there was quite a few guys who's status suddenly changed.

For a while their status was and remained negative. Once prep became more recognized I started seeing positive but undetectable. For some time people were intentionally lying about their status. For that reason and that reason alone, I'm somewhat leary about seeing postings stating positive but undetectable.

Anybody is suspectable to becoming infected and I respect a person regardless of their status but for me the two just doesn't add up.

Also I'm wondering, once a person is considered undetectable, do they have to continue the same regimen in order to remain undetectable? I enjoy mostly just oral sex .  I realize that it has some risk but understand that it's less risky than anal sex. Most of my encounters have been anonymous or in an adult bookstore setting. I'm comfortable receiving oral sex but I become hesitant when a stranger tries to get me to penetrate them bareback. I usually hear the  statement, don't worry I'm on prep. 

I'm also seeing an increase of guys taking multiple cocks one after another. Does this increase a person being able to spread HIV to others even though the guy is HiV + but undetectable and is on prep?

I feel like we may be creating an variant of HIV that won't be controlled by using prep. I'm seeing to many people participating in riskier behavior.

[BootmanLA]

4 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

Thank you for your response. I'm a member of several sex sites and became aware that there was quite a few guys who's status suddenly changed.

One thing to remember: a lot of casual sex just stopped cold when the pandemic started, and I'm sure some number of people stopped taking PrEP if they were not actually having sex with others (outside of whatever "COVID bubble" or similar that they were in). Some of them, no doubt, started up again before getting back on PrEP or before getting PrEP levels back up to par, so some may have been infected then.

Bear in mind, too, that most people consider themselves negative and describe themselves as such right up until they find out they're not. Some of them - those who don't grasp the science that thoroughly, in particular - still assume that if they limit the number of sex partners they have, and limit them to "the right kind" of guy, then they're "safe" from being infected. During the pandemic, I'm willing to bet a lot of people ended up getting infected with COVID and in the course of getting long-overdue blood work, etc. done as part of the screening, some number of them found out - surprise! - that they were HIV+. That might account for some of the jump in numbers of infections, in addition to the previously cited factoid that we saw a "clump" of new infections finally diagnosed after labs began catching up on work delayed by COVID.

4 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

For a while their status was and remained negative. Once prep became more recognized I started seeing positive but undetectable. For some time people were intentionally lying about their status. For that reason and that reason alone, I'm somewhat leary about seeing postings stating positive but undetectable.

People do lie. They lie about whether they have a wife, a husband, a partner. They lie about whether they have HIV. They lie about all sorts of things. But in my limited experience, there's not much mileage in lying about being Undetectable. If you're going to lie, you'd probably lie that you're negative, rather than UD.

But you're also seeing that education is helping people understand the U=U mantra (undetectable = untransmissible). Now that more people understand that, people who were reluctant to admit to being poz undetectable are opening up. The riskiness of sex with them hasn't changed; what's changed is that some portion of them don't feel the need to claim to be negative when their real status is just as safe.

5 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

Anybody is suspectable to becoming infected and I respect a person regardless of their status but for me the two just doesn't add up.

What you seem to be saying is that you reject the science that U=U. You don't have to accept that, of course, just like you can believe the earth is flat, the moon is made of green cheese, and Trump won the 2020 election. Your beliefs, however, don't change the facts.

5 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

Also I'm wondering, once a person is considered undetectable, do they have to continue the same regimen in order to remain undetectable?

Simple answer: Yes. If the person stops taking medications, his viral load can rise to detectable, and eventually, infectious levels. Returning to meds - though they may or may not need to be changed - will usually return the person to an undetectable state.

5 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

I enjoy mostly just oral sex .  I realize that it has some risk but understand that it's less risky than anal sex. Most of my encounters have been anonymous or in an adult bookstore setting. I'm comfortable receiving oral sex but I become hesitant when a stranger tries to get me to penetrate them bareback. I usually hear the  statement, don't worry I'm on prep. 

Oral sex is generally considered low-risk activity, yes. And receiving oral sex is safer, in general, than performing it on another man. But then being the penetrating HIV-negative partner for anal sex is far lower risk than being one penetrated by someone else - it's the party who's receiving the ejaculation (orally or anally) who's more at risk in any given situation.

That said, if you go to fuck someone bareback and he's already been fucked very recently (ie in the same few hours) by someone who's poz and detectable, you are at some risk of infection even if the guy you're fucking is on PrEP. Because the virus might be present in semen in his rectum and enter through your urethra. It's a vastly diminished risk of infection compared with taking a poz load yourself anally, but it's still a small risk.

5 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

I'm also seeing an increase of guys taking multiple cocks one after another. Does this increase a person being able to spread HIV to others even though the guy is HiV + but undetectable and is on prep?

Again, the only way this is risky is if one of those cocks belongs to a guy who is poz AND infectious. In that case, some of the other tops may - MAY - get infected.

But in any event, no one should be both HIV+/undetectable AND on PrEP - PrEP is strictly for guys who are  NOT positive, to prevent their infection. You're confusing two different things.

A person on PrEP is taking PREVENTATIVE medication to prevent himself from getting infected with HIV.

A person who is HIV+Undetectable is taking TREATMENT medication to treat his OWN health, with the side effect/advantage of making it essentially impossible to infect others.

You really need to understand that those are two different things.

5 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

I feel like we may be creating an variant of HIV that won't be controlled by using prep. I'm seeing to many people participating in riskier behavior.

Such a variant may develop - in fact, there are (extremely rare) strains of HIV that do not respond to most or any treatments. But those don't come about because people are having sex with a lot of different guys. When you suggest that, you're just slut-shaming at the same time as showing you don't understand the science of how such strains of a virus develop.

There are more than a dozen compounds which can go into making up HIV treatment medications - with each medication (a given brand name) containing three or four of those compounds. The compounds are grouped into "classes" based on how they specifically work - whether by blocking replication, by interfering with the transcription of the virus during replication, by blocking infection of certain cells, or whatever - and most medications contain at least two, often three or more, of these classes of compounds. That enables the medication to attack the virus on multiple levels.

PrEP is simpler - the oral version contains two such compounds, but they are sufficient to prevent HIV from gaining a foothold in an uninfected person. The two compounds contained in PrEP are often among the compounds in an HIV treatment medication - but the latter will contain other means of helping control the infection that already exists.

Treatment resistant viruses develop primarily when someone is infected and is taking medication for treatment but he does not take it regularly enough to prevent the virus from replicating extensively in his system.

HIV is what's called a "retrovirus", and the way it reproduces is sloppy, often producing mutations rather than clean copies. Those mutations are usually stamped out in a person who takes his medications regularly. But when a patient does not take treatment regularly, some of those mutations can also take hold, and sometimes one of those mutations will turn out to be resistant to the medication he should be taking. Once it's established, it may not respond to the medication, meaning he needs to be switched to something else for the treatment to be effective (assuming he can be persuaded to take his treatment regularly).

But it has ZERO to do with how many people he's having sex with. Viruses and bacteria don't keep a tally of your sexual partners and develop according to your sluttiness.

[RealCute]

5 hours ago, Bolwjr said:

....... I'm comfortable receiving oral sex but I become hesitant when a stranger tries to get me to penetrate them bareback. I usually hear the  statement, don't worry I'm on prep. ......

Remember Prep protects the person taking Prep not the person who's playing with the prep user.  If the person has taken 5 loads you would be exposed to the status of those loads and YOU are NOT protected unless you take Prep.

[1stimebare]

Very impressive explanation of the facts.  Since you mentioned the oral version of prep was expecting a comment on the injectable version as well.  That's what I'm on.  I have been told by my doctor's office I was their first patient to ever go on it and so far as I know still the only one there who is using it.

[muscmtl]

80's poz. I was there.

Really quickly the poz bbckers in medical field, like me, realized that those of us with no to low viral loads could not transmit.

I remember an all poz all bb orgy at IML Chicago 91 or 92 where it turned into an aids meeting where we could share our findings, free from.fukn ethics and police (poz bb was jailable back then).

Same with biohazardmen europe in 94 or 95 where we all started talking about no viral load no transmission during the orgy. I know biohazardmen say their first official party was 1998, but there were secret poz bb orgies in all over europe already in the late 80's

[hungry_hole]

6 hours ago, muscmtl said:

all bb orgy at IML Chicago 91 or 92

In the 90's I enjoyed going to saunas because they were very popular in those days because it was a sure way to have sex. Like most guys did I used condoms until 91, but once at the sauna a guy fucking me in my room took the condom off, I noticed a difference as he pounded my hole but I wanted him to continue. After he bred me, before leaving my room said "I left a present for you". I haven't used a condom since.

[Bimarried001]

I go back to fucking in the 80s and 90s as well. I banned condoms from my ass once I became hiv+. Still condom free to this day. 

[Guest]

I remember watching poz guys on tv and wanting to be part of the community. I am not poz.