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 on herpes and sex education 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!
And if you want action for your own sexual health clinic, write to your local councillor. No one does! You can say your children/nephews, etc., need the service. They don’t care who is using it, just that it needs support. Afterall, chlamydia is the most common cause of acquired infertility! That’s serious. There are 29 other things that look like herpes. So just because a person thinks they have it, until it is swabbed by a sexual health service, you cannot tell. We probably need a protest to protect sexual health clinics!
We have been following the development of the potential vaccine from Rational Vaccines. This is the work of Dr Bill Halford’s team. (I recently spoke to their CEO on the phone.) This is an interesting vaccine, because it is different from the others currently being worked on. It is formulated in the same what as the successful chickenpox vaccine.
Continue reading Potential vaccine?
We run these days to help you develop confidence, information, skills to talk to a new partner – 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. You can see the date for the next one on the Support Groups page of the website.
Continue reading ‘Talking to a New Partner’ – Come to an Event That Will Give You Confidence (and Information)
You may have read some headlines in the Sun or the Mail, etc. They report “‘Women infected with herpes while they are pregnant are twice as likely to have a child with autism.” This headline comes from a study looking at whether maternal infections during pregnancy are associated with the risk of neurological developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
Continue reading No “Link between herpes in pregnancy and autism”
Events are now on their own website page – with dates
We organise a support groups/social get-togethers – mostly in London. The hosts for these events are people with herpes. You can meet others with the virus, share experiences…
We hold informal, interactive days when you can learn how to talk to a new partner. These are on the first Saturday of them month – and they are extremely popular. The usual comment from people who attend is always something like: “I wish I had gone to one of these sooner…”
And a formal seminar – once a year – with a doctor who is expert in genital herpes. We always ask the doctor to be sure to allow time for answering all your questions. Next one is on May 12th, 2018.
Since COVID, we have added lots of Zoom events too. Several every month.
We need a volunteer (or more than one) to come into the office to do the routine tasks of administration. (We had a great guy, but we found him a full-time paid job in this building, so now we need ‘you’!)
Continue reading Volunteering
