The gays love buzzwords – recently you may have heard about “Doxy Pep” or “Doxy prep” and want to know what is it? Dr Cris – founder and doctor here at Hey Fella helps break this down and explain it.
Ok – Tell me in 1 sentence what is it?
Doxy PEP is an antibiotic that can help reduce your chances of infection with syphilis and chlamydia when taken within 3 days after sex.
What is Doxy Prep?
Doxy prep is a term that describes the daily use of both PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and Doxycycline as a daily combination to prevent the infection of HIV and certain STIs (sexually transmitted infections) such as chlamydia and syphilis. Doxycycline is a highly effective antibiotic that is used to treat many infections including STIs such as chlamydia. This combination has been used overseas, particularly in the United States.
What is Doxy PEP?
Doxy PEP is a term to describe the use of taking doxycycline as a post-exposure prophylaxis (aka after sex) as a once-off after exposure.
The key difference to Doxy PREP is instead of taking doxy daily – this is taken once off after exposure.
What does this mean for me?
Up until recently, the Australian Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) guidelines did not recommend the use of doxy PEP. One of the reasons is increasing risk of antibiotic resistance.
Now ASHM has released a statement on the usage of doxy pep for gay men to reduce the chance of chlamydia and syphilis infections.
Clinical trials of gay men using Doxy PEP have shown significant reductions in syphilis (by 70–80%) and chlamydia (by 70–90%), and to a lesser degree, gonorrhea (ineffective in some trials, or 50–55% reduction in other trials).
Important considerations
Everybody’s STI risk exposure is different – this depends on many factors such as how often you are having sex, how many partners, and your position (top or bottom). Speak to your doctor about whether Doxy PEP is something that could be useful fo you.
Also although Doxy PEP does decrease the chances of STI infection it doesn’t completely remove the risk and regular STI testing is still recommended.
Want to learn more?
Book a consultation with Dr Cris to learn more about DoxyPEP