PEP and testing

Recently a friend told me he had to go on PEP.

PEP stands for Post-Exposure Prophylaxis and is a course of anti-HIV medication that can help prevent someone from becoming HIV positive.

My friend was aware of PEP and he had been having a sexual health check-up twice a year, but he was unaware of the testing process for someone who had to be on PEP.

When you have to access PEP, the doctor or nurse you speak with needs to know exactly what happened. The best thing to do is be honest and tell them so they can provide you with the best and most appropriate medical care they can.

They’re not there to judge you.

If they determine that you should be put on PEP, they will take baseline blood tests, which means they want to know if you are currently HIV positive and if you have any asymptomatic STIs. The doctor will give you a seven-day course of PEP and you will need to return to the doctor to receive your baseline test results the following week.

If your baseline tests come back positive, you won’t need to continue with PEP. Your doctor, however, should provide you with further information if this is the case.

If the results are negative, the doctor will give you the other 21 days worth of medication.

After you have completed the other 21 days on PEP, you need to return to the doctor to have a one-month follow-up test. The result of this test is most indicative of whether you are HIV positive or HIV negative. You will need to return to the doctor the following week to get this result as HIV test results can only be given in person.

Three months after the exposure incident, you will have to return to the doctor for your last blood test. Doctors wait until the three-month mark as it can take up to eight weeks for HIV to show up in your system. When you return the following week to receive the three-month test results, you will have a 100 percent accurate status confirmation.

info: Visit www.getpep.info or www.mshc.com.au