How to Avoid Getting Infected with HIV
If you want to minimize your risk of getting AIDS, the best way to do it is to avoid infection by HIV, the virus that causes the disease. Fewer people today are dying from AIDS in the US because of the success of pharmaceutical intervention, but treatment is very expensive, averaging around $20,000 a year, producing side effects and psychological distress. In many parts of the world the epidemic has torn a swath through the population. There is no cure for AIDS, and if you’ve ever wanted to have children, infection would prove to be a major hindrance. Here’s how to keep safe:
Don’t panic. HIV is a fragile virus. Unlike influenza, is it not spread through the air, nor is it transmitted by casual contact such as shaking hands or sharing food with somebody who is infected. It is hard to find HIV in saliva, so it’s probably not shared by kissing either. It is transmitted through an exchange of bodily fluid like blood, semen vaginal fluid, urine and feces. Even if HIV infected blood splashes on intact skin, there is little risk of infection.
Unprotected sex is a major avenue of infection. You can abstain if you so choose, but sex is one of life’s great joys. A sensible step is to sleep with fewer partners or choose monogamy.
By far the best method is to use condoms, faithfully and consistently. Remember, people lie to get laid. Don’t believe a perspective partner if he or she claims to be HIV negative. If you are interested in beginning a life together, stay monogamous for more than six months, get tested together for HIV, then get rid of the rubber. Until then a latex barrier is your best sexual protection.
It’s best to incorporate condom wearing as part of the sex act. Un-lubricated non-spermicidal condoms work better for fellatio. Some are now flavored. Condoms can be kept in the mouth and unrolled on a penis while swallowing so that a male sex partner enjoys condom wearing as a pleasurable experience. When using a condom, be sure to remove it soon after ejaculation, disposing of it properly.
Vaginal dams should be used when giving cunnilingus to a woman. These latex squares are sold in most drugs stores, sometimes as dental dams. If yours is coated with a powder, wash it off before using because the powder can be an irritant.
When engaging in anal sex, use well lubricated condoms with a water-based lubricant such as K-Y jelly. Petroleum-based lubricants like Vaseline or baby oil can weaken the rubber in condoms. The reason that gay and bi-sexual men are particularly vulnerable to HIV is that unlike vaginas, anuses are not naturally lubricated so skin to skin contact causes surface abrasion which allows semen to blood contact.
Cuts or any breaks in the skin can be routes for infection. If you have any kind of skin lesion on your hands, wear rubber gloves when having sex. Keep open wounds away from other people, because you’ve now become more vulnerable to HIV infection.
If you are an intravenous drug addict, do not share needles. There are needle exchange programs in most cities. Take advantage of them. If you have no other options, then wash your works with water and bleach. Draw a bleach and water solution into your needles. Squirt it out. Do the same with plain water. Repeat the entire process. Better yet, seek help for your addiction.
Tips & Warnings
If you take the right precautions, there is actually less risk from having sex with somebody who is infected than in taking no preventive measures with people who either don't know or claim they are not infected.
Some HIV+ people now have a viral load that is undetectable. Fewer viruses in the blood lower the risk of transmission, but partners should still practice safer sex.
The methods endorsed here are for safer sex. Nothing except abstinence is 100 percent foolproof. Condoms do break.
AIDS has not been spread by blood transfusions in years. However on 11/14/07 the New York Times reported that four victims got HIV from an organ donor, the first instance of this kind of transmission in the U.S. in a decade.