Sex

[EvilAngelToo]

I also would like to know about giving this to someone else is it sexually transmitted or just straight blood to blood?  I am concerned about maybe having givin one person that I was with only once sexually, should i worry?

[Joey_M]

Hello - it depends on a number of factors. Here is a good site that discusses risks:
http://sexandhepc.com/

[Andiamo1]

The risk of transmitting it sexually is close to 0.  I had the disease for more than 40 years and never gave it to my wife.

[EvilAngelToo]

Thanks for the message, That is awesome 40 years I feel better for sure.

[EvilAngelToo]

Great info I will definately check out the website!  Thank you!

[Joey_M]

I WAS REINFECTED BY SEX so please stop saying it isn't.

I was told by my doctor 5 years ago that it wasn't likely spread by sex when I went SVR and the research at the time didn't show much. But now the HCV rate is climbing in the gay male community. Anything that puts blood into contact with blood has the potential to spread HCV and anal sex is a way. Even heterosexual intercourse can spread it if there is exchanged blood involved - the studies show the risk at around 5% for monogamous couple over the long-term - that is a pretty low risk but it is not zero.

Please read the site I posted otherwise let me know what scientific research you have seen that shows otherwise. Condoms are smart if one member of the couple has HCV and the other doesn't.

[nygirl7]

Joey, it certainly IS possible to contract HCV via sex and none of the long term members here would say otherwise. Obviously any time you have what's the word unsafer sex there is a risk and anal sex would be one way...tearing even microscopically is possible and when something is possible well there you go.

I'm sorry for your misfortune but whichever way you got it does not matter. The fact that you know you have it and therefore can monitor it and attempt to cure it is really all that counts.

NYGirl one of the NY Gals and damn proud of it.

[Andiamo1]

"Joey, it certainly IS possible to contract HCV via sex and none of the long term members here would say otherwise."

Although this statement is true, since the risk is above 0, the risk is very low as I said earlier. Anal sex raises the risk, but there are many examples of people that had unprotected sex with a monogamous partner for many years.  I was not the exception.

[rita863]

Still not clear how I was infected.  My husband was IV drug user, and I have never used IV drugs.  I never had a blood transfusion.
I am also not the up the butt girl!

  

[nygirl7]

No but we are talking a different culture here.....and I would think just logically it would be easier to transmit in the gay community just because of the nature.  Sounds rather prejudiced of me but it's not I'm trying to be forthcoming and honest in my response.

I've never really known if I got it from drug use in the 80s or from my exhusband who had it since the 80s. He was not always a gentle man and the risk of infection would have been higher than a regular monagamous relationship. Like the woman we used to know who got it via rape..I do not remember her ID.  Although the odds are low it certainly is possible.

[nygirl7]

Maybe in my past life I was one of the prositutes in NY in that "study"

Oh Rita me and you baby I think everybody here already  knew but now we can come clean and tell the truth ;)

I'm not sure how I got it either but sometimes I'm pretty sure I got it from him because I know he was a dual geno and so was I and that just seems a BIT coincedental you know?

When you get settled we get together in the city. Then maybe they can do another study about us........ha.....watch us eat and drink and laugh ourselves into a coma!

[jdwithhcv]

I have always believed that we three are old souls.  Do you suppose this is where we got our affinity for red shoes with stiletto heels?  

[rita863]

NYGirl-  thinking of the old Donna Summer song!  Hot Stuff!!!  the good old days, hey it where we got our screen names NYGIRL AND SCARLETT!!!

[nygirl7]

Red Shoes Angels wanna wear my red shoes.......

:)

[nygirl7]

The myth is that everyone who is HCV infected will pass it on to their pardner.  The old members have all said so, my doctors have said so, science backs this up"

I do not believe that that came out correctly because I am pretty sure  nobody said that everyone infected will pass it on, certainly not the more educated older members of this forum. I think it came out  backwards perhaps?

Most people infected with HCV are indeed aware of the stigma of having HCV but also some of us consider it a responsibility to also teach those who are not aware the truths of the disease rather than leave them in ignorance. Not everyone because not everyone likes to talk about it but a lot of us.

While it's not likely a person will be infected via sexual relations it is indeed POSSIBLE.  Thank god for the person above it did not happen and is not likely to....I cant think of one member here though that would say it has to happen and will eventually happen to everyone.

Are you being facetious with that statement perhaps?

[portann]

I did read your recommended site and here's just a little bit of what it says:

Hep C: The odds are in your favor
Since no one has established without doubt that hepatitis C is spread by sexual contact, the chance of infection from that activity could in fact be zero.

That is, of course, the most optimistic interpretation of the volumes of inconclusive and conflicting data on HCV risks. Even so, many studies have come to that conclusion.

For example, Italian researchers found in 2005: "The risk of sexual transmission of HCV within heterosexual monogamous couples is extremely low or even null."

Most studies do cite quantifiable risks of HCV transmission via sex, often quite low. Here are numbers that are typical: There is a 3% infection rate of sexual partners in relationships that last an average of 10-15 years. This means the yearly risk of transmission could be somewhere between 0.2%-0.3%.

Again, there is no firm evidence that any hepatitis C transmission comes solely as a result of sexual activity, but sex certainly is considered a suspect in many otherwise unexplained infections.

Part of the problem for researchers is the predominant role of intravenous drug use in hepatitis C contraction. Self-reporting of illicit needle-drug use is unreliable at best. If no needle use is indicated, sex could be seen as a cause when a partner becomes infected.

Representative of the situation is a risks-of-sex chart from the San Francisco City Clinic, which knows a thing or two about STDs. The chart lists "Known Risks" and "Possible Risks" of getting the major STDs from various sexual acts. Hepatitis C gets its own classification: "Unknown."

Hetrosexual odds of infection via sexual behavior
"Sexual transmission is possible, but is a rare event, occurring with a probability between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 100 per year," one hepatitis C research roundup indicates. "Consensus opinion suggests an incidence of 12 per 1000 person-years in partners of HCV infected individuals. These figures translate to a cumulative risk of acquisition of approximately 5% over 20-30 years."

A frequently cited Austrian hep C study from 1999 study found: "The HCV seroprevalence in spouses of patients with chronic HCV infection and viremia is 5%. Sexual transmission, however, appears possible in only 2.5%, due to the results of HCV genotyping. The real risk of interspousal transmission may even be half that (1.25%). ..."

A report from Turkey indicated that of 600 spouses of hep C sufferers, none tested positive for the virus over a period of three years. (2% were positive going into the study.)

The National Institutes of Health, in 2002, added sexual transmission to its list of exposure risks. The NIH team agreed that heterosexual monogamous couples were at little risk. But, "HCV-infected individuals with multiple sexual partners or in short-term relationships should be advised to use condoms to prevent transmission of HCV and other sexually transmitted diseases."



Homosexual odds of hepatitis C infection
Many researchers agree that homosexual men who have sex with multiple partners and/or engage in high-risk activities are at risk of getting or passing on hepatitis C.

These activities typically are described as fisting, rimming and unprotected anal sex, especially when it is rough.

The risks of infection for these types of high-risk individuals have been cited at 15% and even higher.

A major Canadian study of homosexual men found that 2.9% were HCV infected, mostly from shooting illegal drugs. The study suggested sexual transmission was rare among these men. A similar study in Australia agreed.

Studies strongly suggest that people with HIV have a greater chance of acquiring HCV via sex. Researchers in Italy and India independently put the risk factor at three times that of non-HIV individuals.

______________________________________________________

I've been married for decades to the same person and engaged in sex at least twice, having two grown and married children. I can speak anecdotally to the fact that my husband and family are negative, although I've had the virus for over forty years. And we even engaged in the unthinkable in our early days when we shared toothbrushes on a college budget.

[Andiamo1]

Why did the "club" try and hijack this thread?  I don't say this as an attack; I simply want to know why.

[nygirl7]

Eric

A lot of the previous discussion was deleted by MH as being rude.

It all reads incorrectly now but yes the club appears to have hijacked it but it was not the club that did in the first place.

[Andiamo1]

Thanks

[Bill1954]

This is a study I had pinned to my favorites list; anyone is welcome to interpret it as they wish:

1: Am J Gastroenterol. 2004 May;99(5):855-9


http://tinyurl.com/258a2l

"Dipartimento di Medicina Interna, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy.
The risk of sexual transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection was evaluated among 895 monogamous heterosexual partners of HCV chronically infected individuals in a long-term prospective study, which provided a follow-up period of 8,060 person-years.

Seven hundred and seventy-six (86.7%) spouses were followed for 10 yr, corresponding to 7,760 person-years of observation. One hundred and nineteen (13.3%) spouses (69 whose infected partners cleared the virus following treatment and 50 who ended their relationship or were lost at follow-up) contributed an additional 300 person-years.

All couples denied practicing anal intercourse or sex during menstruation, as well as condom use. The average weekly rate of sexual intercourse was 1.8. Three HCV infections were observed during follow-up corresponding to an incidence rate of 0.37 per 1,000 person-years.

However, the infecting HCV genotype in one spouse (2a) was different from that of the partner (1b), clearly excluding sexual transmission. The remaining two couples had concordant genotypes, but sequence analysis of the NS5b region of the HCV genome, coupled with phylogenetic analysis showed that the corresponding partners carried different viral isolates, again excluding the possibility of intraspousal transmission of HCV."


Bill

[alagirl]

The answer is that it is theoretically possible, but seems to be rare.  There do seem to be indications that there is an increasing incidence of sexual transmission of hcv between males in gay communities - as someone has noted earlier in the thread.

In the case of sexual transmission between heterosexual partners, risk of male to female transmission would be more likely than female to male transmission.