How effective is suppressive therapy?
Posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 11:44 AMHelp help help! How effective is suppression therapy? With Valtrex? My mate doesn’t know I have it and our sex life was finished. then he went and got meds to start it up again. Now I’m panicked. I rarely have outbreaks that I know of. And online articles seem confusing … “shedding is reduced to 8% of the days with suppression therapy” means nothing to me. I’m so confused as to what my odds are to not transmit the virus to him. I can’t find anyone who really knows. My dr. even isn’t sure!!! Do you know anything that may be helpful to me??? – S
Suppressive therapy reduces outbreaks to the point that people don’t experience them like they did when they were first diagnosed. So if outbreaks are a problem for you then suppressive therapy would definitely be the way to go.
For those couples where one has genital herpes and the other doesn’t, suppressive therapy is helpful in reducing transmission to the partner that doesn’t have it. In fact, suppressive therapy reduces transmission by up to 50%. You add condoms to that and I would say that is pretty good protection.
Suppressive therapy also reduces asymptomatic shedding by about 95%. So for those people that do not get outbreaks that they can see or feel.. then they would be reducing the chances of their partner contracting it from them even further by being on suppressive therapy.
It’s really up to the couple to figure out what they want to do though.. that’s why it’s so important to talk about your sexual health, your std status, and make a date to go and get tested together so you will both know and understand what you are dealing with before you have sex.
If you decide that you have more questions feel free and post those on the Shut Up N Post! STD Message Board, ok? – A
If you are someone with frequent outbreaks, taking an antiviral drug daily is a good option. This is basically suppressive therapy. Many people who take the antiviral drugs daily have no outbreaks at all. It also reduces the risk of transmitting the virus. A recent study has shown that half the partners of people taking daily valacyclovir became infected with the virus, and half did not. Moreover, 75% of the partners did not show any symptoms of genital herpes, even if they had acquired the virus. The side effects are also very mild or none at all. I do agree that suppressive therapy along with a condom definitely is 95% protection.
Suppressive therapy reduces asymptomatic shedding by about 95%. Suppressive therapy reduces transmission by about 50%. Add condoms to that mix and that’s pretty good protection so long as the uninfected partner knows that they can still contract it because nothing is 100% effective.