WELCOME - READ THIS BEFORE POSTING!

[POZ Forum Moderators]

Welcome to the POZ Forums.

Here in the How Can I Prevent HIV? Forum, you will be able to ask questions about safer sex, condoms, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and other prevention tools.

Please take time before posting your question(s) and read

• PrEP Basics Fact Sheet
  
• Specific Sexual Practices: What are the Risks? Lesson
  
• Antiretroviral Drugs—PEP, PrEP and Treatment as Prevention Lesson
  
• The HIV Life Cycle
  

You'll find some basic information which may be useful to you. And of course, if you still have questions, by all means let us hear from you.

If you are having physical symptoms you are concerned about, you should discuss them with your doctor. Neither the staff of POZ.com, nor the helpful members of the Forums, can diagnose your physical symptoms over the Internet.

Posting Guidelines

• Please do not start a new thread every time you have another question or thought - regardless if you think your questions are related to each other or not. It helps us to help you when you keep all your thoughts or questions in one thread and it helps other readers to follow the discussion. Additional threads will be merged.

• If you cannot find your thread, click on the "Show own posts" link in the left-hand column of any forum page, under your name.

• Please do not post questions that you have about your own concerns in another person's thread. This is called thread hijacking and we do not encourage this practice.

• Only those Moderators and members who are authorized to answer questions in the How Can I Prevent HIV? forum are permitted do so. Unauthorized responses may be deleted without permission of the poster. Repeatedly posting replies of this nature may result in a Time Out or permanent ban, at the discretion of the Moderator Team.

• Anyone who continues to post excessively, questioning a conclusive negative result or no-risk situation, will be subject to a four week Time Out (a temporary ban from the Forums). If you continue to post excessively after one Time Out, you may be given a second Time Out which will last eight weeks. There is no third Time Out - it is a permanent ban. The purpose of a Time Out is to encourage you to seek the face-to-face help we cannot provide on this forum.

• With the exception of the “Do I have HIV?”, "How Can I Prevent HIV?" and “Off Topic” Forums, the POZ.com Forums are intended for people who have been diagnosed with HIV (or their loved ones/caregivers).  If you are questioning or unaware of your HIV status, please refrain from posting messages or questions in the Forums intended for HIV-positive people. If you are not living with HIV and are here to participate in the PrEP forum please confine all your post to the PrEP forum. You may post in other members threads within the PrEP forum to offer advice or support but once a PreP forum member you are only allowed to post in that forum as well as the off topic forum where we discuss anything other than HIV.

• When you created an account with the POZ Forums, you agreed to have only one account. Starting multiple accounts is against the rules of the Forum and will cause you to be banned from our forums.

• Do NOT use Private Messages to question other members about any transmission, testing or symptom issues. These issues must be discussed in the public forum. Misuse of the PM function in this manner will result in your PM privileges being removed without warning. 

• Please be courteous to other posters. We will not tolerate the use of abusive language under any circumstances.

• If you have a problem with another poster, including abusive or unwarranted messages received via the private message (PM) function, please use the Report to moderator button. That is what it's there for!

Adhering to these posting guidelines ensures the smooth running of this forum. Thank you for your cooperation.

We hope that you will learn enough about HIV in your time on this forum to enable you to protect yourself against HIV infection. If you are in serious doubt about your HIV status, you should seek care from a certified healthcare provider and get tested.
 
The POZ Forum Moderators Team