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Written by Paul Varnell
Jun 30, 2010
I’ve noticed a number of commercial and public health ads for free HIV-testing in WiG. Yet I wonder if there is any gay man (and it is mostly men who are at risk of infection) who has not at this point been tested.
I suppose so. There are always new young gay men who are just becoming sexually active, and there are obvious holdouts among older men who do not think they are at risk. I'm sure there is a sizable population of gay men who have not been tested.
There are a number of excuses for not getting tested. One friend told me he was always a top so he was sure he was not infected. He turned up positive. God only knows how many other gay men he had unknowingly infected.
Another friend said he almost always used a condom. Almost! He too turned out to be infected. Both promptly went on antiviral drug therapy and are doing fine.
I myself am hardly a poster boy for early testing. I was tested only two years ago after years of sexual activity, and I did so only after a good friend of mine got tested and found he was infected.
In telling me my results, the young woman counselor kept asking, “How are you feeling?” or “Are you feeling alright?” I kept replying, “Well, this is not welcome news, but it is not a shock,” which was the truth. Apparently she was accustomed to gay men who had strong reactions to the news of their infected status. But for me there was a certain satisfaction in knowing for sure: It was like the other shoe dropping.
Shortly thereafter I went to the local gay health clinic and got tested for viral load, and T-cell levels. It turn out my viral load was high and my T-cells (the particles that fight infection) were dangerously low. Yet I felt fine and I’d had no symptoms. I started on HIV therapy soon thereafter.
There are a couple of good reasons to be tested. If you're negative, there is an incentive to stay that way,. A second is the incentive, if you have a conscience, to avoid infecting others by using condoms or having sex only with other infected men.
A third is the incentive to go on antiviral therapy and spare yourself the possibility of a crippling or disfiguring opportunistic infection. I recall that the moment I went on antiviral therapy, my viral load sank to an almost undetectable level and my T-cell level began to rise, almost like magic. As recently as 15 years ago, people died from this disease.
Taking one to three pills a day at a meal is not an enormous burden Two decades or so ago the antiviral regimen involved several pills taken with certain kinds of foods at various times a day. It was so complicated that many men missed doses or were tempted to give up the whole thing entirely.
Be grateful for medical progress. I do not expect a cure for HIV/AIDS in my lifetime, or perhaps yours, but eventually there may be a once a week or once a month drug therapy by pill or shot.
Over the past 30 years we have seen remarkable progress on this disease. It would be foolhardy in the extreme not to take advantage of the progress that has been achieved.
