Contributed by Janes Stokes, freelance writer:
The human body is made up of an ultra-complex system of ever-shifting cells. Everything we experience in life is a creation of the 200 different cell types populating our bodies, never sleeping and always working. Joining those 200 cells types are countless different other organisms, including bacteria and viruses. Many of these coexist peacefully in your body.
Continue reading The Organisms That Call Your Body Home
Like us, or just look at the interesting posts on our Facebook page. We call it “Sphere” so that you are not embarrassed by the ‘h’ word! We also have a private Facebook page for members only.
Continue reading Our Facebook Page
A member asked us about putting a Dates and Mates advert into the magazine: “I would like to meet some new friends male or female who I can trust and talk to… shall I put an ad in?” She added: “I had an invitation to a gathering but felt it was too big a step to take, I wish I had the confidence to do it …”
Continue reading Meeting people with herpes
It amazes our new helpline volunteers how often a caller phones to describe their symptoms and get the helpliner to say what they have. We cannot do that. There are 24 ‘differential diagnoses’ that a sexual health doctor will be considering when s/he is shown what might be genital herpes.
We don’t list these on our website as we don’t want to encourage self-diagnosis. After all, they don’t give a medical student a link to a website and say ‘Now you can diagnose sexually shared conditions”!
Continue reading Helpline – what they ask
Listen to the interview that Marian gave to a student of journalism.
Continue reading Herpes and sex education – an interview
Pre-2018 Blog archive.
Continue reading Blog Archive
Sign the petition to maintain the sexual health services. Since the government REMOVED sexual health from the NHS and asked local councils to provide it, the standard of services (access times, staffing, etc) has gone down.
You need to show that members of the public do want the provision of anonymous, easily accessible sexual health clinics. Sign now!
We have been following the development of Theravax from Rational Vaccines. This is the work of Dr Bill Halford’s team. (I recently spoke to their business manager on the phone.) This is an interesting vaccine, because it is different from the others currently being worked on and it is more like the successful chickenpox vaccine.
Continue reading Potential vaccine?
We run these days to help you develop confidence, information, skills – and to meet others in the same boat.
Nine people attended recently. They marked their score cards with the top rating: a ‘very helpful’ day and several commented that it was even more enjoyable than they had expected. “Meeting the others on the course is a bonus,” said one lady. “In fact I have made two new friends and we support each other and meet up.” These days happen every three months.
Continue reading ‘Talking to a New Partner’ – Come to an Event That Will Give You Confidence (and Information)
If you get cold sores, you might like to try the new cold sores treatment with melissa. The researcher is keen to have more people to try this new, improved formula – and report back to him. A man who tested an earlier formula is totally thrilled at the results: much better than anything else he’s tried, and he’s tried a lot of different products!
Lidocaine 5% is handed out in some Sexual Health Clinics. It is a topical anaesthetic – it numbs the pain or itch.
Phone the HVA office, 020 7607 9661, to find out how to get it.
