Rugby legend Gareth Thomas has shown he’s living with HIV, having kept the diagnosis a secret for decades, but claims he had been made to inform people.
The 45-year-old became the primary UK sportsman to disclose he’s the virus through an interview with the Sunday Mirror – before showing in a movie on his Twitter page he had been”forced” to make the entry.
In the video he says:”I want to share my secret with you. Why? Since it is mine to let. Not the evils threatening to tell you until I do.
“Now although I have been forced to inform you this, I decide to struggle to instruct.”
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, he stated he had felt”shame” on the identification and was suicidal at a single stage.
“I had a fear people will judge me and treat me like a leper due to a lack of knowledge,” he said.
“I had been in a dark place, feeling suicidal. I thought about driving off a cliff”
The former Wales rugby union and league star came out as homosexual at 2009, becoming the first British Celtics worldwide to do.
Describing the day he received the diagnosis, Thomas said:”I will never ever forget the minute I found out. I went in a private clinic in Cardiff for a regular health evaluation.
“I had had the tests every now and again and they’d always come back fine. I didn’t feel sick and that I thought everything was going to be fine.
“The woman who did the test took blood as usual, I went outside to my car and waited for around an hour before going back to receive my results.
“Once I moved back in, I sat down on a seat near a doctor’s bench. She informed me at a rather matter-of-fact way I had tested HIV positive”
The rugby star said he promptly”broke down” and”thought I was going to die”, including:”I felt like an express train was hitting on at 300mph.”
Mr Thomas currently takes one tablet containing four medications each day and his condition is”undetectable” – meaning it can’t be passed .
His spouse Stephen, who he met after being diagnosed with, does not have HIV.
There’s still a great deal of stigma across the illness although Approximately 101,600 people in the united kingdom live with HIV.
HIV could progress to AIDS if it isn’t treated, but most patients in wealthy countries don’t develop AIDS if they undergo treatment.
Thomas stated:”Many people live in fear and shame of having HIV, but I refuse to become one of them now. We will need to break the stigma once and for everyone.
“I’m speaking out because I would like to help others and make a difference”
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