New breakthrough in HIV/AIDS treatments.

Thanks for sharing your story, BU2B. It's interesting, my brother also has HIV positive and he has a similar story. People have this misconception that people who have AIDS all lead ''risky'' lifestyles and are always on the edge of contracting some sort of disease. Most of the times is really just accidents. I also think it's important for people to drop this idea that AIDS is a disease for gay people. A lot of people still think they're safe because ''they don't have sex with men'', which really doesn't mean anything.
But yeah, it sucks. It's tough for my brother to find people to actually have long-term relationships and sometimes he gets really depressed about it.
 
@colin007
Please, at least TRY to have an unbiased view. What you said earlier in the thread was awful and offensive, and it would be cool if you didn't try to find excuses. Having cancer is not an excuse to think other diseases are less important. I'm sorry to say this in such a rude manner, but whenever you enter a discussion about people with some sort of disease, disadvantage or some form of social exclusion, the first thing you need to understand is that IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. Look, it sucks that you had lymphoma, but that's irrelevant to this discussion and it would be nice if you didn't try to make this a discussion about the importance about your disease against the importance of others people's.
ta-da

BU2B


I was sent to the hospital 4 months ago because I had a cough for 9 months that wouldn't go away and asthma and other lung ailments like allergies were ruled out.  I went to the hospital because I collapsed outside while mowing my lawn and wasn't responsive to people trying to wake me up. 

Turns out I had a serious fungal infection in my lungs, had I waited about 4 days longer, my lungs would have completely filled with the fungus and I'd have died.  What was killing me was called cryptococctus.  Most people dont get this and hardly anymore gets it as badly as I did. Why did I get it, well turns out I've been carrying HIV with zero symptoms for about 8 years and being very unsuccessful at transmitting it to anyone.

So I started thinking back, I had a steady girlfriend and she's clean but she dumped me right abot that time, I'd been dating her for 11 years, I was pretty bummed.  So I did what a lot of people do, and took to going to clubs and bars and drinking myself silly every night.  One night, at closing time, there was an attractive girl, we struck up conversation which lead to us having sex in the backseat of her car, and yeah, was probably unprotected, but she looked clean.

Well, as I dont do needles or have sex with men, this seems to be the only place I could have gotten it.  A very simple, human mistake and the rest of my life is filled taking 3 pills twice a day and not being able to tell anyone because they'll think I'm gay or will hurt them, even though at this moment I could go take a hiv test and show that I'm negative and I probably cant actually infect anyone but the FDA wont possibly say that people with HIV can have unprotected sex.  Which sucks, I have a finance who I cant really have sex with and I have to wear a ziplock bog on my cock and odds are I cant have children in a normal natural way.  For you to say that I dont deserve a change at being cured or living a normal life for one simple mistake sucks. I'm not saying cancer doesnt suck and it will likely be what kills me given my family history,  but its a lot more complex to solve than aids is. and curing any disease is a good thing. Its hardly like no one is researching cancer solutions either.

That's a really rough story man, I hope you do well with it in the future and have many symptom free years.
 
I just wanted to clarify one thing though (sorry, it's the doctor in me!) You said that if you took a test, you would probably be "negative" and "people with HIV can have unprotected sex" without infecting anyone.  I just wanted to make sure you knew that this is incorrect (purely so that your future actions sexually are not based on this information).
 
If you have been diagnosed with HIV, any HIV test you take will be positive.  Just because your CD4 count/viral load is well controlled, it just means the effects of the virus on your immune system are well controlled at that particular point, but you still have the virus and will still test positive for it in the conventional modern HIV tests.
 
More importantly, you CAN infect people with unprotected sex.  The likelihood of an HIV person infecting a non-infected person vary depending on gender (ie. whether you're penetrating or being penetrated) and type of sex (vaginal/anal) and even though the transmission rates are ~ less than 1% for each instance of unprotected sex with an HIV positive patient, this doesn't mean you can't transmit it to anyone. You CAN, it's just an unlikely occurrence for each time you have sex.  Consider having sex regularly with someone (ie. a wife/long term girlfriend) and obviously the chance rises exponentially.  Obviously your infectivity is less when your viral load is low and vice versa, but the possibility of transmission is still there.  Just wanted to point that out if what I understood from your post was correct.  If I misunderstood what you were saying, apologies!
 
 

well part of what you're saying is not true, I do test negative on HIV tests as I've taken 2 to make sure that I am at the proper level since then, but it's only words, it doesn't mean anything, I still have hiv and I cant stop taking my medicine.
 
As for the other point, its unclear if I can transmit or not, its suspected that I probably cant but no research area will ever fund something with this this being the purpose of the study, mainly because itd have to be tested on humans earlier than it should be and no one wants to be responsible if the theory is wrong.  The general surgeon issued a statement saying that even if it is true, that they will never support public disclosure of it because they will never issue a statement diminishing the importance of safe sex.  Again, it really doesn't matter, if I ever get the chance to spoo, I do it in a baggie.  Also doesn't matter much because I cant get myself to get the point where I can actually cum anyway, because I'm afraid a fire monster will come out and kill everyone.  As a result, I've not had an orgasm in a year, which makes for a pretty cranky me most of the time.

Links for interest
Positive people testing negative (its called undetectable for a reason)
http://www.journaids.org/...e_tested_hiv-positive/
 
http://www.aidsmap.com/files/file1050024.pdf
 
Undetectable does not transmit
http://www.aidsmap.com/Sw...ring-sex/page/1429357/
 
http://www.thebody.com/content/art49400.html
 
 

Goldenfoxx

  you guys DO realize that being a carrier for the HIV disease is not the same thing as having AIDS, right?

 
Yes, absolutely.  But it's still interesting that such a high-profile case (referencing Magic Johnson) hasn't presented in full-blown AIDS.  Not that I'm wishing it on him, of course.  It's just that if he has any answers, I'd like to think that he could help others - and I'm not implying anything, just talking.
 
BU2B - very sad story.  You have my well-wishes and prayers.

Bails
Yes, absolutely.  But it's still interesting that such a high-profile case (referencing Magic Johnson) hasn't presented in full-blown AIDS.  Not that I'm wishing it on him, of course.  It's just that if he has any answers, I'd like to think that he could help others - and I'm not implying anything, just talking.

 
Well, 1.  He does.  He campaigns constantly and consistently for AIDS research.  2. It was just the way you guys were talking, it was like you think Johnson has full-blown AIDS and should therefore be dying from it.  That's the conclusion I think a lot of people came to when it was first announced, too.  All he ever announced was that he tested positive for HIV.  He's a carrier.  I remember Eddie Murphy coming out not long afterward and saying that he and Johnson kind of had their pick of the litter back in the 80s.  And I seem to remember that (in opposition to Wikipedia here, I'm just going on memory) (or could SWEAR I remember that) he didn't actually announce retirement at first.  I remember some uproar at the time from other players that they wouldn't play if Johnson was on the court with them on the basis that if he were cut open and all that...  A lot of HIV and AIDS teaching followed. 

Yeah, I seem to remember that he was considering playing, too. 
 
But, they say the memory's the first thing to go!

Bails

BU2B - very sad story.  You have my well-wishes and prayers.

Thank you, I need every bit I can get

In university, I've begun a research on genetic therapy for HIV-1 treatment, is this your case? 'Cause there are other types of HIV.
 
There was one particular study I read where they transferred blood from a person with an almost invulnerable to HIV-1 genotype to a sick patient, and his viral load dropped and he was eventually free from HIV.

Oh wait, I'll get you the link ... (after 5 minutes of research) : Adoptive transfer of costimulated CD4+ T cells induces expansion of peripheral T cells and decreased CCR5 expression of HIV infection (hope the link works)