In 1999, Tony Mills opened his practice in Los Angeles specializing in HIV care. Mills says the trends in care today are probably 90 degrees opposite from what he saw then, and 180 degrees from 1985, when he began his first practice in San Francisco.

“Going to work, in that clinic in 1985, was so hard because everyone I diagnosed got sick, and I didn’t have anything to offer anybody. I was just starting off my career in medicine, and I had gone into medicine because I wanted to help people,” says Mills. “There I was, at the beginning of the whole HIV thing, and I thought ‘God, I really need to do HIV work.’ But then when I started doing it, it was so difficult, because I would look at these people who were my peers, and give them the diagnosis, and see them die within a year.”

When he found out that he himself was positive in 1987, it was like looking at his own mortality every day, and psychologically he just couldn’t do it, it became more than he could handle. So he went back and trained and practiced in anesthesiology for about 10 years. “And I loved doing it, but I always felt like I had failed, that I wasn’t strong enough to be an HIV doctor, and that was really what I was supposed to do. In ‘99 I finally made the decision that this was what my life was supposed to be about and I wanted to give this a shot, and so I moved out to L.A. and opened a practice out here.”

Mills is open about his own status with his patients, and has been since the mid-nineties. In 1998, he won the International Mr. Leather (IML) contest in Chicago. “When I did the IML stuff,” says Mills, “for me that was really emotionally about the fact that I had just gotten on a triple drug combination in 1996. My virus had been suppressed to undetectable levels, and my T-cells, which had been at 35, began moving up from there. I started feeling better, and gaining weight, and exercising more, and thinking about going back to work, and I wanted to carry that message to other people — that there was hope.”

When asked if he feels being positive gives him any special insight, whether his patients can perhaps trust him more, Mills replies, “I think they do trust me more — I have patients who come and see me from all over the world. I always tell them, ‘Look, I have a lot of friends out there, that are really good HIV specialists in your city.’ But they come to me for a variety of reasons. They come to me because they want to see a gay man, and they can’t find a physician in their city who’s gay and can understand them. Or they may come to me because I’m positive. Or they may come to me because of my experience in the leather community, and that’s an aspect of their life that they think is important, or they don’t feel comfortable talking to their doctor about it, and they need to be able to talk about their behaviors and the risks that are involved there, and what precautions they need to take.

“So all of those things that I had fear about in the past that might keep people from coming to see me are now the things that actually bring them to my office, and make them feel comfortable there, and make them feel like I understand, and they can really open up and talk to me about who they are.”

Mills believes in order to provide the best possible care it’s as important to understand his patients’ psychological health as it is their physical health. And he firmly believes that providers need to be comfortable having frank and open dialogue with their clients about risk behaviors and recreational drug use. He says that sometimes it’s easier for providers to not delve beneath the surface and talk about what’s really going on with their patients.

“One of the most exciting groups that we have meeting in L.A. is the HIV-positive over 50 group. There’s a waiting list because there are all these guys out there who find it’s hard to connect with people, for whom disclosure is still an issue, and some of them have been on medications that have long-term side effects. And aging is compounding the lipodystrophy effects that we got from the medications, and it’s a difficult situation to face.”

While he sees a lot less lipodystrophy in his practice today, and doesn’t even consider it a real problem, Mills admits that’s probably because he lives in L.A., where they’ve been on the cutting edge of cosmetic treatments over the years. Southern California was also very early to jump on the bandwagon of getting people off of the offending agents, such as Zerit, and making changes in people’s regimens. “When I travel to talk to people in locations in the middle of the country or in more rural areas, I’m always shocked when I walk into a room full of HIV-positive men in Kansas, and I see the ravages of lipodystrophy. But in L.A., and I think in New York and Chicago, and the big areas where physicians are more keyed into the issues, I think it’s becoming less of an issue. I think the new drugs are definitely less toxic, we understand which ones tend to cause the lipodystrophy, and which ones are safer. I really believe when I start patients on a new regimen, certainly my naive patients, I can start them on a regimen that has a low incidence of side effects.”

In New York City in the 1990’s, Mills regularly attended a group for HIV-positive physicians who came together for support. Today, they all kind of know who each other are, but he’s continually surprised by those who he may have known for years, who come in to see him and are HIV-positive. “It’s really a burden, to have to carry that around by yourself for so long.”

Says Mills, “When someone first tests positive, I give them a lot of information on the first visit. But I tell them I don’t expect them to remember everything, except that this diagnosis tells me absolutely nothing about the duration of your life, or the quality of your life — those things are totally in your hands, just as they were before your diagnosis. What it does tell me is that if you’re conscientious, and take good care of yourself, you’ll probably be seeing me more often, and we’ll be monitoring your bloodwork, and taking care of your immune system, and there may be a time when you need medications.

“If you’ve gotta have HIV, it’s a great time to have HIV,” Mills explains to his patients. Because there are so many possibilities right now, says Mills, “I’m really extremely optimistic when I have to give somebody a diagnosis, I can really come to them with this conviction that this has absolutely no impact on how long they will live or what the quality of their life will be. I tell them, that’s my job, is to make sure that HIV doesn’t have any impact on either of those things for them.”

Charles Farthing, former director of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, taught Mills something that he says has been really beneficial when talking to patients about their therapy.

“What he does with his new patients, when he’s starting therapy, is tell them, ‘We’re going to start this therapy. And you may come to me and say, I want to change therapy, and I’m going to listen to you, and I’m going to consider that, and we may make some changes. I may come to you and say, I want to change therapies, and I’ll have my reasons, and we can discuss that as well.’ “

It establishes the relationship at the beginning of therapy, says Mills — that this is an evolving science, and fortunately, it’s evolving in the right direction.

Mills, who served on the national board of the American Academy of HIV Medicine (AAHIVM) for about five years, stepped down about a year ago in order to devote more time to his practice and research. But he’s still an active member and supporter of the organization. “It’s really important that people with HIV be taken care of by HIV specialists. I’ve heard some horror stories of people who have been mismanaged, and the thing is, you can do some real damage to people with HIV. You can take somebody with wild-type virus, who is placed on an inferior regimen, and suddenly they have two- or three-class drug resistance, and now you’re talking about Fuzeon.

“I think that credentialing is very important. Even if you’re working in Boystown in Chicago, and only treating gay, white men, you still need to know about the differential effects of the drugs on racial groups or gender differences. The credentialing process emphasizes the fact that providers need to be taking care of a significant number of patients, and staying current — there is a big emphasis on continuing education.”

Mills sometimes lies in bed awake at night, thinking about what can be done to stem the tide of the epidemic.

“How can we really stop the spread of HIV?” asks Mills. “I give more HIV diagnoses now than I did 20 years ago. Maybe people have less fear of it, maybe they have safe sex fatigue, maybe they’re longing for a more intimate connection with other people and they feel that having safe sex prevents that from happening. But how are we going to stop more and more people in our community from becoming positive?”

One of the ways, suggests Mills, is if the medications that we have now are truly better and better, and turn out to be, as we hope, less and less toxic, maybe we should put more people on medications. “We certainly know that the likelihood of transmitting HIV is less if people’s viral loads are undetectable, and maybe putting more people on medications might be beneficial for stemming the spread of the epidemic, I don’t know. But I just think that we really have to start looking within our community, because I’m really tired of giving HIV-positive diagnoses to highly intelligent men in their forties, who have been able to negotiate the path of safe sex for so many years, who have just given it up. I don’t know how to convince them that it is something that’s important — it seems to have lost its weight.”

Mills loves the clinical research and care that he is able to provide, and expects he’ll still be practicing medicine 10 years from now, provided he himself remains healthy — and there’s no reason to think that he won’t. And with the second- and third-generation drugs now available or in development — some that may even only have to be taken once a week — and looking at the synergy between these new agents, and how they can best be used together, Mills says that the next 10 years will continue to bring increased optimism and hope.

“I feel so fortunate,” says Mills. “I get up every morning and I can’t wait to go to work. I love my life, and I love my practice — I can’t see myself doing anything different.”

The Body

 Share

April 27th, 2008
Categories: Gay Support, Gay life, Health . Author: admin . Comments: 2 Comments

I have been threatening to make this story public for some time. But this community seems to be the place.

I am in the army.

At the time I was working a office job

I was placed on duty one evening as guard commander meaning that I would be responsible for the functioning of the guards from 16:00 to 00:00 there after the guard second in command (2IC) would take over the responsibility. The only problem was that the guy who had to be my 2IC was on leave and there was no 2IC. A young troop, who had never done the job before was appointed as the 2IC. So when we reported for duty after work I had to explain to him what was expected of him.

To understand the whole story I first have to explain what the duty room looked like inside: As you entered the door from outside there was a bed ( this bed he and I had to shear – he would use it until midnight and then I would use it there after. To the right of it (only about 2m was a desk for writing reports and answering the telephone) The chair for the person writing at the desk stood here and it also served as a passage to get to the beds behind. Behind the desk was a bed that the duty driver slept in and behind “our” bed was another bed for the duty NCO to sleep in.

When the young soldier reported I explain what was expected of him and that he was to sleep until 00:00 and that I would then go to bed when he takes over from me.

At that time all the guards had gone for supper, and we were there alone

He asked me whether he may take off his boots because it is standard to sleep fully dressed when you are on duty. I said it is OK we get undressed and sleep only in our under wear since it is at an office He then got into the bed with me sitting on the chair next to him. He then asked me if it will be OK to get in bed naked because his underpants’ elastic has been burnt with the iron and bothers him. He then pulled his under pans down and I could see that his cock was half erected. He told me to feel how rough the elastic was. This meant that I had to stretch over him and his half erected cock to feel the elastic. At this stage I must say that I have thought of having sex with a man but was a complete virgin as far as men or woman were concerned. The sight of this naked man with a semi hard cock made my own go completely hard. I reached over and felt the elastic. My arm touched his cock and it immediately sprung to a full erection. He started masturbating. He had only given it a few strokes when we heard the rest of the ppl returning from supper he covered himself. Bur there I was with a stiff cock which was very visible through my trousers and I could not get up or all would notice it. Pre cum was starting to show on my uniform trousers, it made it even more difficult to move Both the NCO on duty and duty driver were now in the office but I could not get my cock to go down and the mark on my pants was getting bigger and bigger. As soon as it was dark outside I jumped up and went outside, thinking that my erection would go down, but I could not get the thought from my head, the erection staid and the stain on my pants just got bigger. At about 23:00 I went back to the office every body was in bed and asleep except for the young man My hard on was still there As soon as I walked in to the room he threw the blanket off him and started jerking again. I was going mad, by this time my balls were acing with lovers balls. He just lay there jerking while I was watching, dieing to touch it but I couldn’t. I did not know how and a senior should not touch a junior and a man should not touch another man’s. Then he told me to touch it I could not bring myself to do it. Meanwhile the other two guys were in the same room should either of them have woken up they would have seen what this guy was doing and that I was staring at him.

By this time my balls really felt as if they were going to burst

At about 01:00 he blew his load it was all over his face, chest and the bed linen. He used the sheet to clean himself. He got up and told me that it was now my turn and with that he started getting dressed.

I stripped naked and got on to the bed Pre cum was still running from my dick as if a tap was opened full blow.

He now sat in the chair, 1m from me, where I had sat. Staring at me. He then told me that he wants to feel something and he touched my dick, I told him to stop because I knew I would blow my load if he was to touch me. He attempted to touch me a few times after that without any announcement but I stopped him very time .

When the sun started rising at about 04:30 I could no longer keep it I said I have to cum I can no longer keep it, He bent forwards put his moth over my dick and started jerking. With the third or forth jerk I could just not control my self any longer and let go.

During the course of that day I had to jerk five more times because I just could not relax or concentrate I could not think of any thing else I stayed horny no matter what I tried.

In the following months we repeated our experience in the privacy of my single quarter room at least once a week until he was transferred

I never saw him again.

 Share

April 22nd, 2008
Categories: Gay life . Author: funnyboy . Comments: 2069 Comments

Me and my freind had fooled around since we were about 11 or 12 years old, we would play truth or dare and dare the other person to rub the darer with his penis. After a year or so of just playing around though it changed. One day we were playing and instead of just daring me to dry hump him my friend dared me to go into the bathroom with him and massage his cock with my hand. So we sat in the shower and jacked eachother off for a good ten minutes. It felt sooo amazing and when I came my cum landed all over him. Well for some reason my hand job wasn’t really getting him off so he told me to lay with my back up and he rubbed is hard dick on my butt for a few minutes until he shot his load all over my back, the feeling of his hot cum on my back was amazing. A year or so latter we were playing again when finally I got up the nerve to do what I always wanted to do. I told him to lay down and close his eyes and I started jacking him off, then I moved down and put his dick in my mouth. It tasted so good, and his soft moaning made it even better, knowing that he liked it. I would suck him for a while then ask him to suck me but he was to shy to do more that just lick my head. We went back and forth like this until he finally came in my mouth. We never messed around again and he never returned the favor, but we both leave for college soon and I really hope to hook up with him once more before its too late.

 Share

April 16th, 2008
Categories: Gay life . Author: Troy . Comments: No Comments