Posts Tagged ‘Health’

Important regarding HIV, this just came to my attention

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Apparently there is a treatment after being exposed to HIV. It’s been in use since 1996, but hasn’t been widely mentioned to people, and is mostly in use by health care workers.

It’s a treatment called PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis). Basically, if a person thinks they’ve been exposed to HIV, they immediately tell their doctor and ask to be put on PEP. They are given very high doses of anti-HIV drugs immediately, preferably within 24 to 48 hours of exposure. This treatment has a very high success rate of completely getting rid of the HIV virus before it has a chance to get hold in a person’s system.

The thought is that it hasn’t been widely mentioned because it’s thought that groups would start to be more lax about their exposure, if they think that they have the equivalent of a “morning after” pill for HIV.

I have friends who are positive and would hate to think that they didn’t have access to all the information available which could potentially prevent even one infection. As such, I felt the need to post this along with the links below so that those interested can get the information they want/need.

PEP Fact Sheet

PEP Questions

Eye Burn!

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

So, it’s my special day! Or, rather it was yesterday.

I went in for the procedure. Was remeasured and everything was still the same.

Got a fancy hairnet and chunks of gauze on each ear. And in to the operating room.

Antiseptic drops, numbing drops, and a few other just for good measure.

Eyelashes tape back. Top. Bottom.

Metallic, Easter Egg plucking looking thing, placed in to push my eyelids further apart.

Then the sucker.

“You may feel some pressure”

No, fucking, shit.

He pushed so hard, the back of my eye hurt. 3 seconds in and I Hear “Start Suction”. And my eyes black out. Not sure if that was cuz of the pressure on the optic nerve (I’m guessing yes), but yeah that hurt.

“You’ll hear a whirring”

I figured, that was them cutting the layer of my eye. It was. Trippiest feeling ever. Couldn’t feel pain, but could feel what is best described as the back edge of a xacto knife running quickly along the surface of your eye.

Creepy.

Then here it goes. “Things will go blurry”. And he flips the flap over and blurry. More blurry than anything I’ve ever seen.

Stare at the flashing red light. Ch Ch Ch Ch sound and the layers of bad eye are burned away. What’s that smell? Burning hair? Nope! That’s my eye!

Then they flip the flap back over and the doctor uses what looks like a little rubber spatula to push the flap around and smooth out all the wrinkles. Crazy fun! Trippy as heck since I couldn’t feel anything and it didn’t feel like it was happening to me.

And now both are done and I’m walking around, with my eyes starting to hurt a little bit, came home and slept for a few hours and that made it feel so much better. So now things are clear. Slight halo at night around lights, but that’s supposed to go away in a week or two.

So, whee! Can’t wait!

Any questions?