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Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

penntoday.upenn.edu

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Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#71

Post by drew870mitchell »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #4
sitkack wrote: post #2

PSA, everyone should be getting the HPV vaccine, regardless of age and gender. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/wh... https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/oropharyngeal-cancer.html

Annoyed at how the guidance has changed on this over the years. At first it was just a narrow slice of 20 something women. Then girl teenagers. Then men and women under 30. Then under 40. If it has an association with preventing cancers, not sure why they were so reluctant to immediately open up the patient pool.

My guess is it's cost driven? IIRC insurance would not pay for mine when i was out of the recommendation pool but they did (were legally required to afaik) when the pool expanded to include my age group.

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#72

Post by smegger001 »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #63
sitkack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second part of the PSA, one should keep prophylactic antiviral medication on hand incase you get exposed to someone with HSV. With 60% of the population positive for HSV, everyone should have an antiviral on hand. acyclovir, famciclovir and valaciclovir https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525787/

HSV-targeting antivirals like acyclovir lower the chances of transmission when taken regularly by an infected individual. They do nothing if taken by those not carrying the virus. Keeping them on hand accomplishes nothing. From the page you link: > If you have genital herpes, you will probably be somewhat less likely to infect your partner if you use antiviral medication for prevention. The medications used for this…

I wonder how effective they are on other viruses in the same family as genitel herpes like oral herpes and chickenpox/shingles, Epstein-Barr etc?

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#73

Post by wao0uuno »

OutOfHere wrote: post #57
sitkack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second part of the PSA, one should keep prophylactic antiviral medication on hand incase you get exposed to someone with HSV. With 60% of the population positive for HSV, everyone should have an antiviral on hand. acyclovir, famciclovir and valaciclovir https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525787/

And where/how does one acquire them from?

Acyclovir is OTC.

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#74

Post by smegger001 »

sureIy wrote: post #69
offmycloud wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PSA, everyone should be getting the HPV vaccine, regardless of age and gender. This is false, please don't take medical advice from an HN post. CDC guidelines do include quite a bit of discussion of patient age. [1] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/recommendations.htm...

CDC guidelines are nonsense here and I fail to see why they would give them. Is there a vaccine shortage? The claim is that you're more likely to catch the virus early in your life and thus "lifetime efficacy" is reduced as you grow older. Duh, this is true of any vaccine. There are various strains of HPV and you can catch them one after the other. Having HPV at 50 is just as painful as when you're 18, if not more si…

Even if you are monogamous partners cheat, people suffer sexual assault better to have it and not need it than to need and not have

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#75

Post by 01100011 »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #63
sitkack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second part of the PSA, one should keep prophylactic antiviral medication on hand incase you get exposed to someone with HSV. With 60% of the population positive for HSV, everyone should have an antiviral on hand. acyclovir, famciclovir and valaciclovir https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525787/

HSV-targeting antivirals like acyclovir lower the chances of transmission when taken regularly by an infected individual. They do nothing if taken by those not carrying the virus. Keeping them on hand accomplishes nothing. From the page you link: > If you have genital herpes, you will probably be somewhat less likely to infect your partner if you use antiviral medication for prevention. The medications used for this…

So it's been a while since I had an HSV scare, but from my research at the time you definitely want to start antivirals as soon as possible after symptoms start(assuming you know since it doesn't always cause symptoms). You want to reduce the viral load and let your body catch up which limits the spread and reduces severity of future breakouts.

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#77

Post by interludead »

unavoidable wrote: post #27
sitkack wrote: post #2

PSA, everyone should be getting the HPV vaccine, regardless of age and gender. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/wh... https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/oropharyngeal-cancer.html

While this advice is good, the article is discussing HSV (herpes simplex virus), not HPV (human papilloma virus), which have quite different symptoms and epidemiology. There are, as yet, no approved HSV vaccines.

That said, I feel like any thread about viral transmission is probably a good place for an HPV vaccine reminder too

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#78

Post by interludead »

sys32768 wrote: post #16

I never got the HPV vaccine and am now too old. Recently I had a papilloma removed from my soft palate near my uvula. They checked it for cancer but not HPV, even though they said it was almost certainly HPV. So for $129 I took the OraRisk HPV test which tests for 51 strains, including the ones associated with cancer, and the results came up negative. So I maybe sort of probably don't have HPV, or may have but don't…

Yeah, the whole HPV testing landscape is kind of a mess - lots of "maybe, sort of, probably" vibes even after paying out of pocket for extra tests. It's frustrating how unclear everything still is, especially for something so common.

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#79

Post by interludead »

djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #60

I'm surprised there aren't any commercialized products considering its efficacy and simple origin. I also wonder if there is any way it could be modified to protect more of the body besides just saliva.

Chewing gum that casually wipes out viruses sounds awesome in theory, but I'd bet scaling it up safely for everyday use is a whole different beast

Re: Antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission

#80

Post by interludead »

tialaramex wrote: post #33
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annoyed at how the guidance has changed on this over the years. At first it was just a narrow slice of 20 something women. Then girl teenagers. Then men and women under 30. Then under 40. If it has an association with preventing cancers, not sure why they were so reluctant to immediately open up the patient pool.

Medical ethics focus on the benefit to a specific individual - your patient. This defuses the "Should I kill one to save ten?" moral dilemma - the individual is your patient, even if the other ten are also your patients, you must not harm the one. But for vaccines it also means that the wider societal implications are not ethically relevant So, medics won't recommend that you give patient A an intervention which is o…

We literally vaccinate people against diseases they might never personally catch because preventing transmission is part of the goal
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