All this pain and discomfort, turns out it's all my fault. I used too much of that cream, and it had an excessive reaction. Put my immune system too far up. The little sachet was meant to be used to cover an area the size of a hand. So using all of it was going too far. I wasn't doing it thinking 'if I use it all, I'll heal faster!!' or anything like that. I just figured I was meant to use the whole lot, otherwise I'm just throwing all this leftover cream away, aren't I? Well, this is one of the times being frugal doesn't do you much good. I might have spread some around where there wasn't anything wrong, kind of thinking I might catch anything that's just sprouting up. These aren't good ideas.

The doctor told me on Monday to stop using the cream (naturally) and to wash the area with a saline solution and go back in two weeks. Used to have a load of proper medical grade stuff around, a couple of health care workers in the family. But I've not seen any for a long time, so I'm going to have to just make my own. I'm meant to wash with it three times a day, which means I have to find the time and privacy to be able to do this. Which is more of a pain than the washing.

I wish I knew someone who had somewhere I could just go for a couple of weeks and have time to myself. Sadly, I don't. So I have to make do with trying to get ten minutes whenever I can.

While I was there I told him about the message about having lice. Didn't mention having thought that I'd found one. Not sure why. I'm just not very good at saying what needs to be said, still. I think too much about saying things, then never say them because I think the right moment has passed. I tried to rationalise this to myself by saying I wasn't sure if I did find anything. Maybe it was nothing. He had a quick look around the front but didn't see anything.

That's a relief, right? Except after I got home, I had another look myself. Because it was more the back that I was wondering about. Didn't really feeling like saying 'look at my arse, doctor' to someone I just met in a hospital. The downside to going to the GUM clinic instead of a GP or something is that you don't necessarily build up a relationship with one person where it's easier to say these things. Or maybe that's just me being me.

I got one of those combs for combing cats to check for fleas, and tried combing the hair on my arse. I'm not smooth or anything, but don't have a lot of hair there so there's not much to work with. Pubic lice can't be much smaller than animal fleas, surely that'll work? Gave the comb a rinse with boiling water, and when to the bathroom to have a look what I could find.

And find, I did. Only one, a little round clear thing stuck between the teeth of the comb, but that was enough confirmation for me. Maybe I just didn't want to be sticking around too long, combing at my arse with a flea comb. Yet now I've seen one for sure, I can't really stop thinking about it.

So I will go, again, to the GUM clinic to ask about using something while I have other thing going on. The doctor I saw on Monday didn't recommend doing anything with my skin inflamed like it is now, and he didn't see anything. But now I don't really want to leave it. The idea that little creatures might be crawling around on me wasn't nice, the certainty that they are isn't something I want to leave unattended.

***

The cleaning hurts less than I thought it would. Pulling the foreskin back still hurts the most. Having a normal bath afterwards hurt more.

Another comb, and another crab. Including what I managed to pick off with my fingers, that's 4 I've found. One of those was on my belly, which would mean they are moving around now. That just makes me want to get something done quicker.

Want to get this cleared up rather than putting off treating it just because it's not serious. I still want it out of the way, and to have a clean bill of health again. Though I'm not sure if I want one so I can get out there and do exactly what I was doing before again.

It definitely doesn't seem to be my week.

Since Friday evening I've had a stinging pain on my dick, and what looks like the skin peeling near where I'd been using this wart cream. It's reached the point where contact with water is really painful, so washing isn't a very pleasant experience. I have just had a bath and I had to grit my teeth to stop from shouting out. I had a piss and that hurt like hell because it came in contact with the skin. Even just sitting around or moving slightly is painful. I use the cream overnight on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I'm going to try to get to the GUM clinic tomorrow morning and ask about it before I continue using it. Still, this isn't what I had hoped for. I'm not even half way through the course of treatment and it's already getting nearly unbearable.

I still haven't heard back from the guy who said I gave him pubic lice. But I did managed to pick what looked like a tiny moving creature from the back of my thigh. The light wasn't bright enough to see it clearly, but it's not a good sign. I had noticed an itch, but kind of put it down to the heat we've been having lately and sweating.

I suppose I was being a bit stubborn, in denial about the possibility of having lice when I got a random message at a time like this. I just wanted to get through one thing at a time. Having another issue on top of other issues doesn't sound fun. So I'm probably going to end up having a nurse or doctor looking around my arse to see if there are lice living there. Great.

It's not something that's complicated to treat, at least. But if it's another cream, then that's a third cream I have to be applying (in addition to the warts one, and one for dry skin). I'm hoping I can get the cream for free from the GUM clinic. It's not expensive or anything, but still. You can't complain with free.

The part I'm not looking forward to is the idea of having to 'get your household treated'. It's bad enough getting baseless accusations of bringing disease into this house. Having to then say 'hey, you all need to treat yourself for pubic lice' is going to go over really well.

Protracted Illness

After the first week of freezing treatment for warts, I was sick on and off for the next two weeks and couldn't make it to the hospital for the next two treatments. So on the day I was originally told I could have been finished with the treatment, I had to start it over again. Having the flu had the added downside of possibly letting the warts virus replicate so what started as a couple of little bumps on the side of my cock head turned into this mass about an inch across.

So I started another course of freezing, and had the full three weeks. But while it helped at first, after two weeks it was bigger than ever. I went about two weeks after the last freezing, when I was supposed to have a blood test for my hepatitis vaccination, but was told I should have come back the previous week. Either I misunderstood something or they had. Either way, I decided to try another kind of treatment and use a cream. While I was there I had blood taken for a last HIV test, the reason I had the appointment this time.

So now I am about a week into using this cream. It is itching and sore, just as the leaflet I got about it promised.  I've got another three weeks worth of cream to get through and then I'm back at the clinic to see how things are.

This also means that this is another three weeks at least where I won't even be trying to have sex. 

***

Having the flu also lead to me having to endure my brother's usual line of bullshit. Getting told it's 'not normal' to get sick so soon after being sick before (by my reckoning it was a couple of months since the last time, but he was convinced it was only one month ago at most). Getting blamed for 'bringing sickness into this house' because I'm always going places with what he calls 'weird people' (who he knows nothing about, and I'm 99% sure that if I were straight and those people were women, I wouldn't be hearing this). Being asked if there was something weakening my immune system, which is just a roundabout way to suggest that I have AIDS.

I do get sick more than I'd like (my head is hurting right this second), but there are other causes for lowered immunity than AIDS. Off the top of my head, currently I could point out a poor diet, lack of exercise, poor sleep, stress, and low mood as factors in this. I need to make an effort to improve my health. Eat better, exercise, sleep properly, try to make sure my immune system is working normally.

But hearing this shit while I'm still waiting to hear the results of my confirmation test for HIV doesn't help matters. I might realise he's just being a cunt, but being subjected to that for so long is still going to have some effect on how you feel. Not heard back from them yet. No news is good news, since they only contact you if there is something wrong. But at the same time I don't know if there is just a delay and bad news will be coming any day now. Having someone making snide remarks implying I've got AIDS is something (and someone) I could do without.

***

I'm finding it hard to admit to myself, or at least vocalise, that I got warts. Even thinking it in my head, which is all I've been doing. I find myself siding more with 'HPV' just because it has less of an emotive punch than the word 'warts'. I'm not particularly beating myself up for getting it or anything like that, but it still makes me cringe a bit. Writing it brings about the same feeling. I guess it's the sense of shame and embarrassment associated with anything wrong below the belt that exists in society. I wouldn't have a problem saying that I haven't been going out or don't want to have sex because I've had the flu, but it's another matter entirely to say that's because there's warts on my cock (caused by a virus that half of sexually active people carry, that can be caught through just skin-to-skin contact, that like 80% of people will have had at some point in their life, and that is easily treatable).

***

And finally this afternoon, I get a text from a number I don't have registered on my phone. Claiming we met off Scruff the other week and I gave them pubic lice. 'Other week' doesn't ring any bells. For one thing, the only person I've met off Scruff was a guy I had one drink with and didn't get close enough to pass on any lice. I haven't slept with anyone for more than two months. So 'other week' seems a bit strange. I should write down the numbers of people I sleep with even if I don't keep them on my phone. It would help out in situations like this.

Not heard back from them yet. I half wonder if it is someone playing a prank on me, since a friend of mine found me on Scruff a month or so ago. Not least because with all the medical staff who have been looking at my crotch over the past two months, no one seems to have noticed any lice.