infectious disease

[hedwigfan]

Does anyone have any idea about how whether people contracted HIV or hepatitis from sharing razors or toothbrushes in Straight?

[enough]

Good question, hep is far more likely though. It takes a fair amount of effort to catch HIV va a razor share etc. as the virus is fairly poor at survival outside the body.

I  posed something along these lines last year, my question was whether we were put at elevated risk for Hep because of the bathroom conditions, and the fact that many people cleaned toilets, not only at the building, but in various illegal and unlicensed foster homes without sufficient protection.

I seem to recall scrubbing toilets with toothbrushes and no gloves etc.

along the same lines what about HPV? By far more common than eitehr Hep or HIV and apparantly easliy spread via skin contact.

[Tampa survivor]

I was at Darren Chastains house in Atlanta right before I bailed the last time and we got a newcomer with the worst case of Herpes I have ever seen short of in an end stage HIV patient.  this poor guy was hiding it, and the foster parents did not even know, until I saw it and talked to them about it.  They freaked, but staff said tough, live with it.  Darrens 12 year old sister did laundry, shared the same bathroom etc.. I felt bad for the guy, but I was glad to not have to hold him by the beltloop after I left!!
Bill
PS James is right, as my A's in microbiology taught me.  HIV is damned near impossible to catch that way.  Never saw any hepatitis in my 2 years either.

[enough]

After two years working in a sex club, I got a pretty good idea what was real and what was hype about STD's. The SF Health Dept did an excellant job of teaching me all about my thingy and where not to put it.

Though I had the same concerns for a while, I began to realize that if I didn't catch it cleaning the toliets at blowbuddies, I probably didn't catch it cleaning the toilets at Straight.

One thing that did concern me for a while was that people came into the program from prison- a breeding ground for TB.

We certainly did pass colds and flu around a great deal, but I doubt much in the way of serious STDs or other infections dieases.

Except of course PTSD, that ran rampant.

[kpickle39]

I have HEP C and I have no idea how I got it.  I never shot drugs or had a blood transfusion.   I did however share toothbrushes on first phase.   I have oftern wondered about this and how I got the C.

[enough]

I am NOT going to say that it was not from the program, nor do I mean to make any statements about how you picked it up.

My understanding is that Hep C can be transmitted quite easily via sexual contact. Blood, Ejaculate and Urine are potential vectors.

Though it is possible that a shared toohtbrush might spread hep C via micro abrasions or bleeding gums, both parties would have to be bleeding at the same time. And the brush would have to be used almost immediately after the infected individual.

I am uninformed as to the specific out of body survival rate for Hep C. Indeed I am not sure that such data has ever been collected.

There are a number of steps that can be taken to slow the progress of the disease and to reduce the damage to the liver. I hope  that you are discussing this with your doctor.

Avoiding alcohol is vital, as I am sure you understand, it will only make the situation worse, and speed up whatever damage is done.

Don't allow a GP to advise you on Hep C, demand that you be referred to a hepatologist(sp?) this comes from the advice of Phil Lesh, who had to have a liver transplant due to his own failure to deal with his infection.

[ladyjerrico]

There is a book I read a while ago that I believe was titled "what you don't know about AIDS, that you should", my father had it and he read up on a lot of that stuff. Sad thing is many things that are in that book arn't told to the public, one of which include saliva.
It said since saliva is a part of bodily fluids it would be easy to transmit that from one host to another. So I'm curious to know if this is a known fact.

[enough]

Saliva is not a known vector for HIV transmission. Indeed the latest research I have read suggests that saliva actually kills HIV. It is extremely unlikely that you will ever contract HIV through the exchange of saliva alone.

What is possible, though still rare, is that you and a HIV Poz partner may have bleeding gums or micro-abrasions in your mouth at the same time, therefore providing a direct blood vector for the virus. This is why it is vital that you not brush/floss your teeth for a few hours prior to and after sex with a non-monogmous partner- brushing can leave you susceptable to infection.

However this type of vector has been extremely difficult to pin down. I particpated in a study of hundreds of gay/bi men in SF who were sexually active, but only in oral copulation. There was no evidence of oral sex transmissions, and there was anectdotal evidence that saliva acted in its natural capacity to inhibit both viral and bacterial infections.

HIV is actually fairly hard to contract without a direct blood to blood vector, such as a shared needle, or a damaged anal lining. Vaginal cell walls are several times thicker than anal cell walls and therefore provide far more protection.

Condoms are extremely effective in preventing vaginal HIV transmissions. especially when the vagina is well lubricated and healthy. Excessive douching can make the situation much worse- much like brushing- it damages the protective cell walls.

Finally, non-oxynol-9 a common spermicidal lubricant is a serious danger to anyone practicing anal sex, it destroys the cell wall, which in the human rectum in merely one cell thick. It contributes risk to vaginal sex as well, at least in terms of disease transmission. It is better to use condoms without it, unless you are confident that  you and your partner are HIV negative, and your primary concern is birth control.

If you remain concerned about salival transmissions, rinsing with a solution of diluted hydrogen peroxide can easily kill any HIV that may remain in your mouth, though the mouth and digestive tracts are not environments where this virus is likely to thrive.

This is way off topic, but I feel compelled to post it anyway as this is an issue on which most gay/bi men have a certain obsession- considering the friends I have lost to HIV even in the past year.

Back to your regularly scheduled nightmares.



[ This Message was edited by: James on 2002-10-16 07:32 ]

[kpickle39]

Thanks James - I have had plenty of unprotected sex in my life and as they say "I do have my redwings"

[Anonymous]

KP you are not alone. I have plenty of my own scarlet letters, so to speak.

[Carmel]

As far as I know, we only had big outbreaks of scabies and impetigo.  Crabs were a big issue too.  Other than that, I dont know of anyone who contracted anything "internally".  Thats not to say it didnt happen.  The guys seemed to be the biggest carriers of the scabies, and the girls the impetigo.  I think because the girls did all the arm carving and they shared whatever little tools they could get their hands on to do so.

[METALGOD8]

[METALGOD8]

When I was in Springfield, a client came in who had an extreme case of Hepatitis. I do not know what letter it was, but his doctor had advised him that one more beer could kill him. He had an extremely bad case of halitosis too! I was emergency rushed to his house one night on a dime therapy call and remember breathing that horrible deathbreath smell on several occasions. I do not have any hepatitis as a result. I remember him vomiting blood and how I was not supposed to touch it, but other than that, it was pretty non-sterile atmosphere there. He was on first phase and stayed at his house. I brought him into group by the beltloop and he got hosted out somewhere.  I did hear that he had been seen a year or so after I 7th stepped, up in WInchester, VA. Personally, I think straight did not practice very safe health guidelines. We sat in each other's sweat for christ's sake! DAMN! HELLLLLP!!!!!!!!   MG8

[misbehaver]

As an active member of the "resistance", I was often covered in blood, sweat and tears during the course of a hard day's work. Sometimes it wasn't always my own. I recall the nasty pillows that awaited my inevitable journey to the floor. They had been cried into, slobbered and bled on; but were always offered with a gracious smirk. I also remember one skinny worthless piece of shit that liked to sit behind MBers; he wasn't strong enough to restrain a limb or hold someone in a chair, so he specialized in covering mouths. I warned this gimp to keep his hands off my mouth (I only could imagine where he'd had them), yet this punk continued to position himself in group to be a mouth man. He knew I wanted to break him and kept away whenever I was let up to piss or eat. I finally got an opportunity and jumped over a couple of rows of blue chairs and proceeded to break his arm. My only regret is that I didn't have a strong grasp on human anatomy and could only manage to put him into a soft wrist cast for a time. Today, I'd gladly snap his pimply assed radius and lodge the fracture into the closest lung. He was later stood up and confronted for "avoiding himself" by seeking MBer duty. Just another day, couldn't worry about getting a little on ya or you might end up on 5th phase or staff.

Jason

[ This Message was edited by: misbehaver on 2002-10-16 18:01 ]

[enough]

Jason,

I have to ask if you were in the Atlanta program?