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Valtrex Daily + Condoms = Do I Really Need to Disclose?


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I got it during my first ever time, with someone I'd known for 3 months, who tested negative across the board (I saw his results), who didn't know herpes wasn't tested, didn't recognise his incredibly mild symptoms, hence didn't know he had it. And we used condoms throughout.

 

I've been in a lot of physical pain, my holiday was pretty much ruined for the most part and now I'm dealing with this for the rest of my life, not knowing how much pain I'll have to endure in the future.

 

Now I already have much peace with this, because the man who gave it to me genuinely didn't know and is very sorry to do this to me and is having to get tested himself next Monday (I wish I could go with him and hold his and but sadly I can't). If he could've given me a choice on whether he was worth the risk he would've. And I'm 100% sure I would've taken the risk and not regretted it even if I'd been infected.

 

I can live with what happened. Now, if I would have had a one-night-stand with someone who knew they had it and didn't tell me, I'd probably want to kick his balls out of his mouth. With as much pain and panic I've gone through the past 2 weeks, I would not want to risk contaminating someone without giving them the right to decide for themselves whether they want to take that risk or not. I don't know if you realise it, but your magic sex might not be worth it to some and they have the right to make that decision. You don't get to decide for someone else whether your sexy times are worth getting a lifelong skin condition for. Even if it's just a skin condition. It's also just casual sex. I would be livid and bitter and have a much harder time accepting all this than I do now.

 

You really don't get to decide whether someone else thinks your penis is worth the risk. Once you know, it's sort of evil not to disclose, even if the risk is fairly low

 

If I were not given a choice, that's not a person worthy of seeing me naked and I'd feel very betrayed if someone did this to me. I'd instantly regret having slept with that person. It's just really selfish. Even if it's manageable, you have to let people decide whether they want to risk having to manage anything.

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Russian Roulette? If you could really compare it to putting a gun to someone's head, then why don't they lock up the millions of children that have cold sores to protect the others that don't?

 

The person has a right to not have sex. If they ask if you have herpes and you say "no" then you are lying. I can see how that would be an illegal thing. If you are transparent, then can you really be to blame?

 

If they don't ask or make an attempt to find out, why should that be your problem? It may sound callous, but logically speaking, it doesn't make sense that all of the responsibility should go on the infected person's shoulders.

 

There is a difference between someone who goes around with a herpes outbreak and doesn't use condoms (or even with a condom) vs. someone who is sleeping with people on outbreaks and making an attempt to reduce the risk as much as possible.

 

Regardless of how bad you think herpes is, the first person is being reckless and the second one is not. Can you really say that someone who is reducing the risk down to .4% is being reckless?

 

Think about it like this-

What are the chances that you are walking to the store and a car swerves out of control and hits you?

 

The driver did everything right, but something he had no control over went wrong with the car which caused the crash.

 

Can you call him reckless? If that was the case then everyone who is driving cars is reckless because they could be potentially be putting someone in danger because 10-12% of car accidents are due to mechanical failure.

 

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Having safe sex when you have no STIs is like driving a car. Having safe sex while having an STI that's not entirely prevented by condoms and not telling the other person is like driving a car and texting at the same time, hitting someone and then blaming them for not asking you not to text and drive at the same time. 'How did I know you didn't want me to drive and text, you didn't tell me up front.' Not my fault I hit you with my car.'

 

You don't get to decide whether the risk is low enough or not for someone else. You just don't have that right. Just because you think it's low enough, doesn't mean someone else does too.

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Can anybody guide me to the research behind the 0.4% figure? I've seen the figures but have a hard time believing them.

Here are the notes from the link that said .4% http://www.herpes.org/protecting-uninfected-partners/

 

References

1. Corey L, Wald A, Patel R, Sacks SL, Tyring SK, Warren T, Douglas JM Jr, Paavonen J, Morrow RA, Beutner KR, Stratchounsky LS, Mertz G, Keene ON, Watson HA, Tait D, Vargas-Cortes M; Valacyclovir HSV Transmission Study Group. Once-daily valacyclovir to reduce the risk of transmission of genital herpes. N Engl J Med. 2004 Jan 1;350(1):11-20. Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. lcorey@u.washington.edu

2. Corey L, Ashley R. Prevention of herpes simplex virus type 2 transmission with antiviral therapy. Herpes. 2004 Aug;11 Suppl 3:170A-4A. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, 03-100, PO Box 19024, Seattle, Washington, 98109-1024, USA. E-mail: LCorey@u.washington.edu

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Having safe sex when you have no STIs is like driving a car. Having safe sex while having an STI that's not entirely prevented by condoms and not telling the other person is like driving a car and texting at the same time, hitting someone and then blaming them for not asking you not to text and drive at the same time. 'How did I know you didn't want me to drive and text, you didn't tell me up front.' Not my fault I hit you with my car.'

 

You don't get to decide whether the risk is low enough or not for someone else. You just don't have that right. Just because you think it's low enough, doesn't mean someone else does too.

 

 

You aren't forcing them to have sex with you. If the ask, then the of course you have to tell them what is up.

 

If they aren't asking you about your herpes status, then why do you have to bring it up? Consider that 90% of Americans have oral HSV 1 and don't have to disclose, and that 50% of new genital HSV infections come from someone with HSV1 going down on someone else, yet it's only the people who HSV 2 who have to disclose? That's a load of bull.

 

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If the driver knew the steering was faulty, then yes a bit.

 

How faulty? That's the question.

 

It can be argued that having the knowledge that 10-12% of car accidents are due to mechanical malfunctions (where the driver wasn't aware) is them knowing the risks of getting behind the wheel, even when they don't notice any faulty steering, and then they should be accountable. But that's not how it works.

 

I brought up the car accident as an example of something that can be, in general, a lot more dangerous than catching herpes, but yet, despite the risk 10-12% risk of machine malfunctions that result in thousands of deaths a year, our society still says it's ok for people to drive cars while at the same time saying that people who have HSV2 and take daily meds and use condoms and don't fuck on outbreaks and are able to bring the risk down to .4% are breaking the law by not disclosing to partner who didn't even ask them if they had it or not.

 

 

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I got it during my first ever time, with someone I'd known for 3 months, who tested negative across the board (I saw his results), who didn't know herpes wasn't tested, didn't recognise his incredibly mild symptoms, hence didn't know he had it. And we used condoms throughout.

 

I've been in a lot of physical pain, my holiday was pretty much ruined for the most part and now I'm dealing with this for the rest of my life, not knowing how much pain I'll have to endure in the future.

 

Now I already have much peace with this, because the man who gave it to me genuinely didn't know and is very sorry to do this to me and is having to get tested himself next Monday (I wish I could go with him and hold his and but sadly I can't). If he could've given me a choice on whether he was worth the risk he would've. And I'm 100% sure I would've taken the risk and not regretted it even if I'd been infected.

 

I can live with what happened. Now, if I would have had a one-night-stand with someone who knew they had it and didn't tell me, I'd probably want to kick his balls out of his mouth. With as much pain and panic I've gone through the past 2 weeks, I would not want to risk contaminating someone without giving them the right to decide for themselves whether they want to take that risk or not. I don't know if you realise it, but your magic sex might not be worth it to some and they have the right to make that decision. You don't get to decide for someone else whether your sexy times are worth getting a lifelong skin condition for. Even if it's just a skin condition. It's also just casual sex. I would be livid and bitter and have a much harder time accepting all this than I do now.

 

You really don't get to decide whether someone else thinks your penis is worth the risk. Once you know, it's sort of evil not to disclose, even if the risk is fairly low

 

If I were not given a choice, that's not a person worthy of seeing me naked and I'd feel very betrayed if someone did this to me. I'd instantly regret having slept with that person. It's just really selfish. Even if it's manageable, you have to let people decide whether they want to risk having to manage anything.

 

Based on what you are saying, it would be evil to have sex with them regardless of whether or not they agreed to it.

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I'm not sure where the .04% comes from. I've read through thus article a few times, and it pretty clearly states that 1.9% of all participants taking meds transmitted the virus. The rate of transmission to a female partner from a male partner was higher, at 3.3% And transmission among people who had the virus less than two years was 3.1%. How long have you had the virus? Because if it's less than two years, that's a double whammy. Certainly, adding condoms reduced transmission. But they did not reduced it to .04%. The closest statistic to that is that .5% became symptomatic. And this is just one study. Unfortunately there are not a lot of studies that really get into this. And use caution when using one research study to make any decision. Especially a decision that is not yours alone.

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I'm not sure where the .04% comes from. I've read through thus article a few times, and it pretty clearly states that 1.9% of all participants taking meds transmitted the virus. The rate of transmission to a female partner from a male partner was higher, at 3.3% And transmission among people who had the virus less than two years was 3.1%. How long have you had the virus? Because if it's less than two years, that's a double whammy. Certainly, adding condoms reduced transmission. But they did not reduced it to .04%. The closest statistic to that is that .5% became symptomatic. And this is just one study. Unfortunately there are not a lot of studies that really get into this. And use caution when using one research study to make any decision. Especially a decision that is not yours alone.

 

.04 is a typo.. it's .4

 

Here's the part in that article about .4:

"As the data prove, the results suggest that the chance of the uninfected partner becoming infected is reduced from 8 incidences per 220 couples that nearly always wore condoms but NO Valtrex (about a 4% chance overall) to 1 incidence in 223 couples that nearly always wore condoms and Valtrex WAS taken daily (about a 0.4% chance)."

 

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If I remember right, the factsheets when I first came here said condoms half your risk, and anti virals half it again.. Female - male is about half as common as male - female..

 

So 0.4% becomes 0.8%, and it's over an 8 month period right?

 

I hit the target on week 1, so 1/32 of that is 0.025% likelihood.. 1/4000. I can't be that unlucky.

 

I'd imagine the discordant couples that would apply to an official study have lived with the condition long enough for their bodies to build a decent amount of control over the virus. I'm speculating, but I just can't fully trust the numbers personally.

 

Props for caring enough to do the research though.

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Here is the actual article. That summary isn't accurate. Transmission rate among those using both meds and condoms was 1.5% it reduced by .4%, not to.4%. And that didn't account for gender.The likelihood you would transmit to a women is higher. I believe it's closer to 4%. I have to dig to find that one though. Not trying to be nit picky but it's pretty important to get this right of your using it to make this decision.

 

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa035144#discussion

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Also- you saw that he wasn't tested for herpes but had sex with him anyway. That's assuming some risk.

 

Was that to me? He was tested, neither one of us was aware that herpes isn't standard part of testing.

 

 

The key here is knowing you could make someone's life less carefree and more uncomfortable than it is and you refuse to give them a choice in the matter because you don't want to risk them not having sex with you.

 

Your discomfort in someone rejecting you because of your condition doesn't outweigh their discomfort when they get infected without being given a choice by you first. Once you know, you have to give them a choice. Just because the risk is only .04% doesn't mean you won't contaminate them. I don't know why you're here trying to get people to agree with you making a selfish choice and taking someone else's away. I don't know what your primary OB was like, but if it was anything like mine, you wouldn't let them risk it without their active consent. Your freedom ends where someone else's begins. Your freedom to sleep around ends where someone else's to choose whether they want to take a calculated risk when sleeping with a stranger begins.

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If I remember right, the factsheets when I first came here said condoms half your risk, and anti virals half it again.. Female - male is about half as common as male - female..

 

So 0.4% becomes 0.8%, and it's over an 8 month period right?

 

I hit the target on week 1, so 1/32 of that is 0.025% likelihood.. 1/4000. I can't be that unlucky.

 

I'd imagine the discordant couples that would apply to an official study have lived with the condition long enough for their bodies to build a decent amount of control over the virus. I'm speculating, but I just can't fully trust the numbers personally.

 

Props for caring enough to do the research though.

 

If the person who gave it to you was asymptomatically shedding then you would have had like 1/10 risk of getting it without condoms.

 

 

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I'm sorry if the Russian roulette analogy went over your head and you took it literal, as that's not what was implied at all.

 

It is YOUR responsibility to disclose your status, as you're the one carrying it. You're finding any way possible to justify your behavior and deflect it onto soneone else. Can you sleep at night knowing you may have passed it to another and it especially be soneone that it causes a lot of damage to like me? If you are OK w this and find it justifiable, then that's on you. Are you going to disclose to soneone you want to be w in a relationship? What if that hookup enda up turning into more and feelings get involved? Are you going to disclose then? How do you think that's going to work out?

 

Yes, your approach on your unwillingness to not to disclose, is absolutely reckless, even w low risk. I myself question those numbers, because you really cannot put a percentage on something this complicated w so many caveats and it be absolute. . Since it is an epidemic, it clearly is spreading at a high rate.

 

You just used an analogy regarding the car where there is absolutely no control of the situation, to YOU WHO HAS COMPLETE CONTROL TO DISCLOSE OR NOT. I think you're really reaching here to feel better about exposing people. Have you thought about seeing a therapist to discuss your sexual urges? I highly recommend you go have a talk and see what you learn about yourself and get an objective opinion. @nal great analogy! Bravo girlfriend!

 

We get it! We think the double standard between oral herpes vs genital herpes is complete bullshit as well! We all go through a period of being angry that this isn't stigmatized the same way, but unfortunately, that's just the way it is for now. Oral herpes is a lot less painful and is presisting w other symptoms such as paresthesia, whereas genital herpes does. . When I got oral herpes at 22, it was painful, all inside my mouth and I was run down, but it has nothing on the pain females experience during their primary Ob on their genitals. There are women on here who have said they'd take giving natural birth again w no meds, than have the pain of a primary OB. Your genitals are very different than ours. Our reproductive system is inside and out and yours is ONLY out. It is way more painful for us than it is for men

 

For someone to have so much fight in them to justify violating someone's sexual health status, I feel there isn't anyone here who is going to change your mind. Good luck on your plight. May the odds be w you.

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2legit, if people are so worried about not getting herpes they should either abstain from sex altogether or at the very least, inquire and ask the person they are about to fuck if that person has it. If women have an especially hard time with it, than they should be double cautious and really make an effort to at the very least ask the man what's up.

 

Instead, a lot of girls have rampant casual sex and don't bother to bring up any of this with their partners. It's not like the statistics on the risks of transmission are being hidden away from the public- they are readily available. Nobody is forcing them to have sex. It is their choice to roll the dice.

 

That said, I want to do my part to reduce the risk of spreading it anyway.

 

When someone consents to sex, they are consenting to all the risks that come with it, STDs or whatever.

 

I don't see why it should be up to the infected person to have to bring this up.

 

And, I'm perfectly fine with my sexual urges. I like having sex with beautiful women. Ain't nothing wrong with that. It's natural for a man. Don't be a hater.

 

 

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