PREVENTION, TREATMENTS & CURES

We live in extraordinary times for medical research and medications. So many illnesses that killed off or incapacitated large portions of the human population are not only treatable but non-existent. We don’t hear about anyone contracting polio or smallpox anymore. Even HIV, which has been the latest literal plague, has not only great treatments but also a preventative medication that is 99.99% effective. Just ten years ago, this was considered impossible.

But for all of our advancements in medication, they mean nothing if guys either are not aware of them or refuse to take them. We believe in choice and free will, but it is also your responsibility to keep up with changes in gay male healthcare solely because your doctor may not be aware of them. It’s sad but true. If you are Black or Brown, you are also much more unlikely to be informed of, and thus prescribed, certain medications that can ease your pain and suffering or even prevent the illness in the first place.

The only thing we can do is inform you about the latest medications you should know about to keep yourself healthy. No, we will not list every disease and treatment known to man, but we will provide content for those most commonly known to affect our community.

Let’s begin…

The Basics of Medications

Infections come in three forms: bacterial, viral, and fugal.

Bacteria

Knowing what bacteria are is beneficial to understanding what treatments may or may not work and why.

“There are two types of bacteria: Gram-negative and Gram-positive. The key difference is the presence of an extra outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria. It’s essentially an extra line of defense that makes it harder for antibiotics to penetrate, thus making Gram-negative bacteria more difficult to kill and more prone to developing resistance.”

Bacterial infections are responsible for illnesses such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, strep throat, tuberculosis, and urinary tract infections.

Inappropriate usage and or abuse of antibiotics has helped create bacterial diseases that are resistant to treatment with different forms of antibiotic medications.

Not all bacterial infections require treatment. Mild symptoms may be treated with over-the-counter medications to increase comfort.

Antibiotics may be used to treat bacterial infections that:

  • are unlikely to clear up without antibiotics
  • could infect others
  • could take too long to clear without treatment
  • carry a risk of more severe complications

People at a high risk of infection may also be given antibiotics as a precaution, known as antibiotic prophylaxis.

Types of antibiotics

There are hundreds of different types of antibiotics, but most of them can be classified into 6 groups.

  • Penicillins (such as penicillin and amoxicillin) are widely used to treat various infections, including skin, chest, and urinary tract infections.
  • Cephalosporins (such as cephalexin) – used to treat a wide range of infections, but some are also effective for treating more serious infections, such as septicaemia and meningitis.
  • Aminoglycosides (such as gentamicin and tobramycin) – tend to only be used in hospitals to treat severe illnesses such as septicemia, as they can cause serious side effects, including hearing loss and kidney damage; they’re usually given by injection but may be given as drops for some ear or eye infections
  • Tetracyclines (such as tetracycline and doxycycline) – can be used to treat a wide range of infections but are commonly used to treat acne and a skin condition called rosacea.
  • Macrolides (such as erythromycin and clarithromycin) – can be particularly useful for treating lung and chest infections, as an alternative for people with a penicillin allergy, or to treat penicillin-resistant strains of bacteria.
  • Fluoroquinolones (such as ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin) – are broad-spectrum antibiotics that were once used to treat a wide range of infections, especially respiratory and urinary tract infections. These antibiotics are no longer used routinely because of the risk of severe side effects.

Viruses

Viruses can affect any living thing. They are reliant upon the host to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Viruses may transmit from person to person through:

  • touch
  • exchanges of saliva, coughing, or sneezing
  • sexual contact
  • contaminated food or water
  • insects that carry them from one person to another

Some viruses can live on an object for some time, so if someone touches an item with the virus on their hands, the next person can pick up that virus by touching the same object. The object is known as a fomite.

Viruses cause familiar infectious diseases such as the common cold, flu, and warts. They also cause severe illnesses such as Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19.

When you contract a virus, you may not always get sick. Your immune system may be able to fight it off.

Once a person is infected with a virus, their body becomes a reservoir of virus particles, which can be released in bodily fluids – such as by coughing and sneezing – or by shedding skin or, in some cases, even touching surfaces.

Treatments for most viral infections can only help with symptoms while you wait for your immune system to fight the virus. Antibiotics do not work for viral infections. There are antiviral medicines to treat some viral infections. Vaccines can help prevent you from getting many viral diseases.

Fungi

Fungal infections affect many guys, but they are especially common for those who work out, use public gyms, take communal showers, or share personal objects with others. A fungal infection is also known as mycosis. Although most fungi are harmless to humans, some are capable of causing diseases under specific conditions.

Fungi reproduce by releasing spores that can be picked up by direct contact or inhaled. That’s why fungal infections most likely affect your skin, nails, or lungs. Fungi can also penetrate your skin, affect your organs, and cause systemic disease.

Some common types of fungal infection include:

  • athlete’s foot
  • jock itch
  • ringworm
  • yeast infection
  • onychomycosis, or a fungal infection of the nail

Some types of fungi don’t usually cause infections in humans but can cause sickness in people with weakened immune systems. These are called opportunistic infections.

Typical forms of fungal infections affecting the skin include:

  • redness
  • itchiness
  • a burning feeling
  • changes in skin color
  • flaking or cracking skin
  • a rash that gets worse when you exercise

Antifungal creams, either over the counter for mild symptoms or prescriptions for more serious cases, are the common treatments and cures.

Good hygiene is also critical for avoiding fungal infections.

Try to:

  • keep your skin clean and dry, particularly the folds of your skin
  • wash your hands often, especially after touching animals or other people
  • avoid using other people’s towels and other personal care products
  • wear shoes in locker rooms, community showers, and swimming pools
  • wipe gym equipment before and after using it

Sexually Transmitted Infections

As we have discussed earlier, STI/STD can either be bacterial or viral. This will, of course, affect your course of treatment. By clicking on any of the links for each infection, you will be taken to our article detailing all of the information you need about it. What we want you to know now is that for most sexually transmitted infections, there is either a mode of prevention, treatment, or outright cure.

Be careful when you read articles from other sources that play fast and loose with the term RESISTANCE—for example, gonorrhea.

“Gonorrhea has developed resistance to nearly all of the antibiotics used for its treatment. We are currently down to one last recommended and effective class of antibiotics, cephalosporins, to treat this common infection.”

The above statement is from the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). You should notice that it states that gonorrhea is STILL TREATABLE.  

HIV

We discuss HIV as needed in many articles. Yes, we call it a gay male disease, but we follow that up by reminding you that it’s not even close to being the totality of gay male health concerns and should not be the end of your search for knowledge about your body.

With this being said, we want to bring your attention to two medical interventions.

The first one is PrEP ( (pre-exposure prophylaxis), which has been tested many times by healthcare organizations around the world and found to be 99.99% effective in preventing the transmission of HIV in homosexual males.

There are two medications approved for use as PrEP: Truvada and Descovy.

The second one is PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis). Even though PEP has been around longer than PrEP, it is not as well known or used by gay males. This might be because a limited time window allows you to begin this regime with maximum success.

“PEP is the use of antiretroviral drugs after a single high-risk event to stop HIV seroconversion. PEP must be started immediately to be effective—and always within 72 hours of a possible exposure.”

If a medical provider has been exposed to HIV, PEP is the first response for treatment. So, it obviously works.

TREATMENT

HIV treatment has come a very long way from the bad ole days of just AZT or the need to take handfuls of medications three times a day, every day, at the exact same time. But, none of this matters if you are not informed about your options or refuse to take the medications as prescribed.

The list of active medications prescribed by medical providers is constantly growing and changing as our understanding of the virus and possible medication side effects becomes greater. The best advancement has been the once-a-day, single pill option. “Single-tablet treatment regimens, or STRs, are becoming popular. STRs, also known as fixed-dose combinations, mix several drugs into one tablet or capsule that you take once a day. You take an STR around the same time every day. You’ll need to take some STRs with food.”

This virus has created an entire scientific field around itself. Understanding the terms most commonly used and the types of possible treatments will make conversations with your medical providers easier, faster, and more productive.

  • ART is recommended for everyone who has HIV. People with HIV should start taking HIV medicines as soon as possible. ART can’t cure HIV, but HIV medicines help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. ART also reduces the risk of HIV transmission.
  • The main goal of HIV treatment is to reduce a person’s viral load to an undetectable level. An undetectable viral load means that the level of HIV in the blood is too low to be detected by a viral load test. People with HIV who maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative partners through sex.

There are many HIV medicines available for HIV regimens. The HIV medicines are grouped into seven drug classes according to how they fight HIV.

The choice of an HIV regimen depends on a person’s individual needs. When choosing an HIV regimen, people with HIV and their healthcare providers consider many factors, including possible side effects of HIV medicines and potential drug interactions.

A full list of HIV medications as of 2020 may be found HERE. Not only does it have the names of the drugs, but it also links to more information about them, side effects, drug interactions, and even a retail price guide. There are also pictures for those of you, like us, who can’t remember the names of medications all the time.

Before you go

We picked infections that we believe that you, as a gay man, are most likely to encounter. Of course, this list does not include everything, but it should give you a great start on the information you will eventually rely upon.

As amazing as our progress in infection treatment and prevention has been, three issues still plague us as a community.

  • Lack of testing: This includes STIs, other infections, and even the common flu. Knowledge is power, and if you are getting regular check-ups, they should consist of tests for sexually transmitted illnesses, and NOT JUST HIV.
  • Taking the medication as prescribed by your doctor: This should go without saying, but just because you are feeling better does not mean you should cease taking your meds. This, as well as stopping and restarting medication regimes, is what causes resistance within the individual and, eventually, the illness LEARNING to counteract the effects of the medications. When you don’t take the meds as prescribed, you’re hurting yourself as well as our community.
  • Not getting treated at all: This one is the saddest from our perspective, especially for HIV. If guys KNOW they have HIV, and for whatever reason, they are not being properly medicated, it is as if they were living before these medications were invented. So, our advancements mean nothing. Those lives lost…nothing. Further, not being treated for HIV or any other illness can lead to a progression of even more severe diseases. Do yourself a favor and TAKE THE DAMN MEDICATIONS.

If you, or anyone you know, is having difficulties taking medications as prescribed, click HERE for a great article with tips and suggestions that have worked for us.

If you or someone you know needs to find a new doctor, we have two articles—Basic and Advanced — that can help with this process.

If you would like to know more about the vaccinations you should have, please click HERE.

Finally, if you have been prescribed a medication or one has been suggested for your or a loved one’s use and you would like to know as much about it as possible, click HERE. This site gives a detailed description of all current infectious disease treatments, as well as suggested usage guidelines, side effects, and drug interactions.

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