puddles

My God, Yes!!!!! At some point in the recent evolution of medical science, the practitioners of a discipline called Epidemiology took over the "high ground" of credibility. This means reducing diseases to numbers. It has its uses (in costing disease, or understanding outbreaks), but lacks any finesse - a crude tool at best, a source of falsehood more often. Most of the great medical advances were drawn from case studies - the close observation of real people. Statistics was just one way of looking at the results, not the only way, far from the best way for most purposes. Consider a hypothetical example - you are testing a drug that statistically does not outperform placebos, indeed does more harm than good, but that, in a small minority of specific cases, gives significant relief to people who have been helped by no other drug. Statistical analysis won't pick up this detail (and therefore, in this hypothetical case, the drug will have been proven a failure, and be discarded) UNLESS YOU ARE ALREADY AWARE OF IT. Most medical research is funded by people with something to sell and something to hide (e.g. most nutritional research is funded by the food processing industry). How does this help us when it comes to STDs? If I wanted to learn about herpes - how it might affect me, how I might catch it, the risks and effects - I'd listen to people who live with it, and I'd consider other medical advice in that light. We've all, I'm sure, had the experience of listening to a doctor pontificate, while thinking to ourselves "If you actually had this disease yourself, you'd never have said that" or "No-one who has actually taken this drug themselves would ever prescribe it to another human being". Only an idiot, after all, would let an expert contradict their own experience. As for relying on statistics, that's just a form of gambling.

(He speaks) I contracted Herpes in oral sex with then partner's cold sores. Passed it back to her, then it went away. Twice in 20 yrs it came back, in both cases I laid off sex with my then partners then used condoms for at least a week after it healed. Better safe than sorry. Somehow, I don't think it will ever come back twice with the same partner, but it's likely to reappear early in a relationship with a new partner - just like with thrush, once the immune system adjusts to the pH, natural bacterial fauna etc of a new partner the immune system seems able to suppress it. At least, that's been my experience. I don't actually consider it, in my case, or anyone I know with it, to be a serious illness; more of an inconvenience, preferable to toothache. It's the social aspect that sucks, and what it can do to your mind before you understand it is potentially more destructive than the disease itself (birth is a special case). But, different folks, different immunities. My immunologist friend tells me H is normally passed on only in that active phase (24hrs before the pain there's a tingling, which one comes to recognize, because it's very site-specific) but some people are "shedders" that is to say in these unfortunates the virus is in normally shed skin cells and can be passed on at any time. You can be tested for shedding. In my experience there's no such thing as a mild outbreak, and the pain pretty much rules out sex anyway. But in a swinging setting, use condoms (of course), and don't have sex if it's "out". Really, herpes should be the least of your worries. It is well known that herpes thrives on the amino acid l-arginine and does not like l-lysine. Not so well known that Hepatitis C thrives on iron and does not like selenium and the amino acids l-methionine, l-cysteine, or NAC, but I thought I'd include that too.

We find that novelty in sex is somewhat over-rated, that to be one's best one has to find a "groove". This is especially true for guys. Another factor is that physical fatigue affects performance; that when one stops to take a breath, the work suffers. That's where performance-enhancing herbs and vitamins have a role to play. note that you can buy the same products cheaper from a health shop than from a sexual specialist, if you just read the labels (I'm talking tribulus, Ginseng, horny goat Weed, Muira Puama; diet makes a big diff. too)