What is it like to have monkeypox?

Open sores, headaches, muscle aches, exhaustion, a painful rash …   What is it like to have monkeypox?

Transcript

00:00A sign of monkeypox can be lesions. I have two on my face. This one is still developing as well,

00:05sort of looks like a pimple. And then that maturity gets worse to go to turn into this.

00:15First time I noticed my symptoms was June 27th, right after Pride celebrations in New York City.

00:20And I first noticed a sore in the underwear area, we'll call it. And then over a few days later,

00:27I sort of realized that some other symptoms I was having included night sweats. I had

00:32constant headaches for an entire week where I was constantly popping pills of Tylenol,

00:37just to sort of get rid of the headaches. And the exhaustion was just,

00:41you know, nothing I've ever experienced when it comes to exhaustion.

00:58And for me, the most painful symptom was a sore in the urethra in the underwear area. So it hurt

01:05to pee for an entire week. And so I would say that besides that one symptom, which was really painful,

01:12the sores for me were pretty mild. The hard part about this outbreak is that the lesions sort of

01:16evolve over time. So you have one now and then you might get a couple more in a couple

01:20days and then a couple more in a couple more days.

01:46I think it's important to note that the reason that it's spreading within the gay community is

01:50because we have really strong social networks, right? And so we go out to the bars together,

01:54we go to the clubs together, and as a group, right, we go to safe spaces for us. And that's

01:58why it's been pretty contained in the LGBTQ community. Once it happens to get into the

02:04straight community, which it has, it will start to spread more and more because it's not being

02:09just spread through sexual transmission.

02:30I first went to an urgent care center, CityMD, in the city, in New York City,

02:34and their policy at the time was they will only test you if you had two sores or more.

02:39I also went to an emergency room the same day, who was supposed to be testing,

02:43and got turned away. And they said, it's probably just an ingrown hair, come back if it gets worse.

02:47And then I went back three days later because I had actually gotten sores other places on my body

02:52and they ultimately tested me and I tested positive for monkeypox.

03:22In short, we have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly. I have decided that

03:38the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.

03:52We know something about this virus, that we have a vaccine, we know how to treat it. But despite

04:01that, people are having to wait in line for eight hours for a vaccine if they can even get one.

04:07I could not get vaccinated at the time when I got monkeypox. Vaccines weren't available. It was not

04:13a thing. I was one of the first 111 cases in New York City that was diagnosed. So after that,

04:20they started doing these vaccine drives and whatnot.

04:31The way that monkeypox testing and vaccination is happening is much more like COVID 1.0, where

04:38it's hard to get a test if you think you might have it. I wish it was being treated much more

04:42like COVID 3.0 that we're on versus the COVID 1.0, where doctors don't know any information

04:48and can't get you the treatments and things like that. I think that the epidemic needs to be

04:52handled much more like an epidemic. I think it seems to be a small issue now, a blip on the

04:58screen. But I think knowing that it is underdiagnosed, it needs to be handled much

05:03more aggressively, such that vaccinations and testing become much more like it is for COVID now.