She loved me enough to tell me

[MLvr]

Hello,
Happy to be here and hopefully learn from everyone. I am negative, and seriously dating a poz woman. We have been friends for 20+ years, and she has been a good friend. LSS- I am recently divorced after 20 years with the same partner, and this old friend and I began to see each other in a new light. Before intimacy, she told me of her status. Not surprisingly, it made me love her even more. She could have easily done whatever and never mentioned anything, but thinks enough of me to let me know. What a brave thing to do, and really lets me know she cares. Oddly, I feel closer to her for this. So I am wondering if anyone has run into any issues with PrEP. Insurance and such. This is someone I want to be with, and status to me is just something we need to deal with. Having children, I need to be responsible, and am trying to educate myself. I will be honest, I have extremely limited experience with this and am reading all that I can. We want to be together, and this is just something we need to deal with. Would you just contact your GP and explain the situation, or do you need to go to a specialist? Honest question. I have good insurance, so am just wondering my next step. After reading so much here lurking, I had no idea things had come so far.

[mecch]

Ask your GP and he/she will decide if you need a specialist for a PREP script.

You don't need PREP if your lover is undetectable which I assume she is. You can just use a condom and her treatment/undetectability will be more than enough - that's safesex x2.   That's my opinion, of course.

Also my opinion - that its fairly routine for HIV+ people to tell their sex partners they are HIV+.  Well its wonderful you love her so much, and appreciate so much she told you, it's pretty much what most of us do, even when not in love. Its not particularly brave for many of us. Its routine and just a question of respect and letting the potential partner decide what he/she wants to do with that info.

[Rachael_1]

I am married to a HIV+ man, I am negative.
The doctor doesnt want to give me Prep, unless we have a condom breakage.
I see it as a very low risk, lower than before when we had unprotected sex (we were BOTH stupid, I know) before his diagnoses.
He has discussed having kids with his specialist and has been told to wait till he has undetectable viral load (he had 600 VL in January, down from 300.000 in December).
I just recently spoke to my gynecologist and she supports my decision to have a child with him naturally. From what she says, if we program the conception (only have unprotected sex around ovulation) and he has a undetectable viral load and we are both STD free (being investigated) then the risk is very low. There is a long waiting list for sperm washing (2 to 3 years) and we dont want to wait that long, so we are considering "natural conception".
So, my advice is to read up on this and talk to your HIV specialist and also involve the gynecologist. If the doctors aren't helpful/supportive find other ones. Good luck!

[mecch]

I am married to a HIV+ man, I am negative.
The doctor doesnt want to give me Prep, unless we have a condom breakage.
I see it as a very low risk, lower than before when we had unprotected sex (we were BOTH stupid, I know) before his diagnoses.
He has discussed having kids with his specialist and has been told to wait till he has undetectable viral load (he had 600 VL in January, down from 300.000 in December).
I just recently spoke to my gynecologist and she supports my decision to have a child with him naturally. From what she says, if we program the conception (only have unprotected sex around ovulation) and he has a undetectable viral load and we are both STD free (being investigated) then the risk is very low. There is a long waiting list for sperm washing (2 to 3 years) and we dont want to wait that long, so we are considering "natural conception".
So, my advice is to read up on this and talk to your HIV specialist and also involve the gynecologist. If the doctors aren't helpful/supportive find other ones. Good luck!

I want to remind anyone reading this that it takes several undetectable blood tests until the risk is "very low" that an undetectable HIV+ person will transmit HIV.   People are not "good to go" right after the first undetectable test.

[Rachael_1]

Thanks mecch!!!

[DANIELtakashi]

Hi.

My doctor ssid exactly the same as meech does.

[BT65]

Of course the ideal situation would be to take Prep.  However, if insurance will not cover, and you cannot afford it, then waiting for 3 consistent undetectable VL tests should be sufficient.  There was a study done with people whose partners had consistent UD VL, and the result was no one got infected.  I'm going to need to see if I can find the old threads that have that info in it.  Of course you could probably do a search on poz.com for it also.

Nice to see so many people sticking by their poz partners.  That speak volumes about you all's character.  Good luck, and remember to get those consistent UD VL tests. 

Betty