POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => I Just Tested Poz => Topic started by: dingowarrior on October 31, 2006, 08:21:21 am
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hello everyone,
i keep seeing this word "seroconversion"..what exaclty does it mean?
i think i understood that , thats when you get the symptoms of hiv infection (sore throat,vomiting,diarreah,fever ect..)..correct?
if so, how long after exposure does this symtoms occur?
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Seroconversion is the point that your body's immune system recognizes (or tries to) the HIV, and begins attempting to produce antibodies to kill it, and tries to dispell it from your body.
The symptoms of which you are speaking are the typical things your body will do to fight bacteria or viruses within it.
Seroconversion (blood change) is not the same for everyone. Some people seroconvert without ANY symptoms, while others have mild to extreme flu-like symptoms. And, symptoms (if they occur) can occur anywhere (usually) after the time of exposure up to six weeks, and sometimes (rarely) six weeks to twelve. Even more rare are people who contract the virus (I've read about them), and don't produce antibodies for a great many months to years after exposure (again, exceptionally rare).
HIV is a retro-virus, meaning that it constantly reinvents itself - just like madonna! which is why it is such a hard virus to fight. It's not the intention of the virus to reinvent itself, it's actually unintentional human host error. You see, each individually attacked cell makes mistakes while transcribing the RNA within its cells mitochondria, after the virus attacks certain of the body's cells and hijacks its replication system - in order to replicate itself. Thus, producing variations on the original virus that did the cellular hijacking.
Some of those variations are impotent, while others are not - thus the retrovirus. Once 'hijacked', each cell can produce hundreds of copies of the HIV before its life is over. Your body can fight HIV, but the HIV replication happens (unless you're an Elite Controller, and your immune system has found a way to keep it in check) at an exponential rate - so it is exceptionally rare (unless you're an Elite Controller) for it to not eventually be treated.
But, I digress... What I meant to say was:
I had a severe case of seroconversion, :( unfortunately. My doctor didn't recognize any of the symptoms (even knowing that I'm in a high-risk group) because he was a dumbass. And it was through happenstance routine testing that it was discovered what was going on with me.
I had severe diarrhea, cramping, hallucination inducing fevers, viral sores in the back of my throat. I almost died because I couldn't swallow, and wouldn't eat because of that, and without my then boyfriend, who kept numbing my throat with Lanocaine so that I could swallow, I probably would have. I had severe sweating, dehydration, and lost 23 lbs in about 6 weeks. My seroconversion lasted for a total of 12 weeks, and was so unbearable. For me, seroconversion was the Mother Goddess of all Flu's. :( I wish I could have been one of the people who seroconverted without symptoms.
Isn't the grass always greener?
-joseph
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wow Joseph, you really know your stuff..thank you for your very informative reply..i'm sorry,so sorry that you went thru all that drama/illness...
i have to say, that i never been thru anything like that..my doctor told me that i had must of been infected a least 3 to 4 years ago..i never had anything similar to what you mentioned..i didnt even have the flu..not that i want to get sick, but i just dont understand this nasty freakin virus the lives in us..i'm glad your better and i pray for your health and continued battle with this crap..
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We all have our paths. :)
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I'm pretty sure mine was a flu-like illness that came on very suddenly and sent me to Emergency with 104 fever and a nearly unbearable pain in the centre of my leg. I was worried I had flesh-eating disease the pain was so strong and weird! Docs said a viral illness, I didn't think to check for HIV then.
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Docs said a viral illness, I didn't think to check for HIV then.
The same with me. I tested negative in September, but had the horrible sickness (my fevers were 103 & 104) in late October, and tested in November (it was my idea, not my doctor's) and was given my diagnosis on World Aids Day (December 1, 2004)
Talk about irony. :)
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A retrovirus is defined as a virus that has its genetic material in the form of RNA, and uses the reverse transcriptase enzyme to transcribe its RNA into the host cell's DNA in order to reproduce.
In most animals, and in most viruses, double stranded DNA is 'unzipped' to produce single strands of RNA during cellular reproduction. In a retrovirus, it's RNA is first turned into DNA by reverse transcriptase and then integrated into the host's own DNA, so that when the cell reproduces, it makes copies of the virus.
It reproduces in the opposite direction at the cellular level , hence, "RETROvirus"
It is NOT the same as Madonna, who, from what I hear, can go both ways.
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From what my doc has told me, about 20% of his patients experience symptoms during seroconversion. Yet another reason why the spread of this pandemic is so rampant, many people are infected well before being diagnosed with little to no symptoms what so ever.
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I just tested poz two weeks ago and my numbers are: 435 T-Cell, 21% & 98,000VL. I just learned that the strain is resistant to Sustiva. I'm pretty shaken-up. I know feel like I have a mild version of the flu & some diarrhea which I hope is from the stress. Any thoughts from anyone??
Philo 46
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Breathe. :)
You're in good company.
I'm not on medications yet, but VL and Tcells go up and down depending on the time of day and a myriad of other factors... including stress - so don't freak out about your numbers. This would be a good time to get and keep a gym membership, or to do something to help relieve stress. Stress is one of your worst enemies.
My doctor told me that the VL tends to peak after seroconversion, and then plateau at a lower number...
Do some deep breathing exercises. You're gonna be okay.
-joseph
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*
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I sure hope it does! If you read the list of seroconversion symptoms, you may as well have been reading them off my chart. First was the achey flu like 'wow this is gonna suck' feeling then a level of exhaustion I can't even put in to words, then the fever... did I ever see some strange things because of the fever. Then I lit up like a christmas tree with a purple splotchy 'rash' that started on my face, neck and chest and slowly moved down my body as far as my knees over a two week period. It looked more like thousands of tiny little bruises actually. I lost 20 pounds in two week, thanks in part to the uncontrollable diarrhea and the fact that my throat became so swollen and sore I couldn't so much as drink water. Then it just would not go away. I looked and felt like that for nearly three weeks. I remember there were times when I would be sitting in my bed at 5am drenched in sweat unable to move except to slam my head against the wall behind me because the pain distracted me. There was definitely more than once when I actually hoped I would die just to end it. hell of a way to spend a christmas! And with all that happenning with me screaming to the doctor that I thought I thought I may have been exposed and he STILL told me I had scarlet fever. like seriously, who gets that?
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damn, thats some story...i guess for what its worth i'm one of the fortunate ones..i just never had anything like that..and the doc. told me the virus has been in my system for 3 to 4 years... :-\
hope your alot better now.
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I was sick as hell while Seroconverting. Had pneumonia, lost 18 lbs.. It was so bad, I had no energy to get up and go to the bathroom! Luckily, I have gained back my weight and haven't fallen sick after that (yet), except slight throat infection once.
I read a post here few months ago, and some guy mentioned that it's good sign if you fall sick while seroconverting, and what that means is your immune system will keep the virus at bay for quite a while before you need meds. But again, I guess this is only a superficial theory!
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I actually heard the opposite.. I was under the impression that the worse your seroconversion symptoms are the faster you will progress to AIDS.. but this is all from possibly unreliable internet sources..who knows? i guess it depends on the person..
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dareal,
You should NOT be posting in this forum. Please read the Welcome Thread (http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=220.0) and take note of the forum posting guidelines. Thank you for your cooperation.
Ann
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Hi,
Seroconversion is the point that your body's immune system recognizes (or tries to) the HIV, and begins attempting to produce antibodies to kill it, and tries to dispell it from your body.
The symptoms of which you are speaking are the typical things your body will do to fight bacteria or viruses within it.
Seroconversion (blood change) is not the same for everyone. Some people seroconvert without ANY symptoms, while others have mild to extreme flu-like symptoms. And, symptoms (if they occur) can occur anywhere (usually) after the time of exposure up to six weeks, and sometimes (rarely) six weeks to twelve. Even more rare are people who contract the virus (I've read about them), and don't produce antibodies for a great many months to years after exposure (again, exceptionally rare).
HIV is a retro-virus, meaning that it constantly reinvents itself - just like madonna! which is why it is such a hard virus to fight. It's not the intention of the virus to reinvent itself, it's actually unintentional human host error. You see, each individually attacked cell makes mistakes while transcribing the RNA within its cells mitochondria, after the virus attacks certain of the body's cells and hijacks its replication system - in order to replicate itself. Thus, producing variations on the original virus that did the cellular hijacking.
Some of those variations are impotent, while others are not - thus the retrovirus. Once 'hijacked', each cell can produce hundreds of copies of the HIV before its life is over. Your body can fight HIV, but the HIV replication happens (unless you're an Elite Controller, and your immune system has found a way to keep it in check) at an exponential rate - so it is exceptionally rare (unless you're an Elite Controller) for it to not eventually be treated.
But, I digress... What I meant to say was:
I had a severe case of seroconversion, :( unfortunately. My doctor didn't recognize any of the symptoms (even knowing that I'm in a high-risk group) because he was a dumbass. And it was through happenstance routine testing that it was discovered what was going on with me.
I had severe diarrhea, cramping, hallucination inducing fevers, viral sores in the back of my throat. I almost died because I couldn't swallow, and wouldn't eat because of that, and without my then boyfriend, who kept numbing my throat with Lanocaine so that I could swallow, I probably would have. I had severe sweating, dehydration, and lost 23 lbs in about 6 weeks. My seroconversion lasted for a total of 12 weeks, and was so unbearable. For me, seroconversion was the Mother Goddess of all Flu's. :( I wish I could have been one of the people who seroconverted without symptoms.
Isn't the grass always greener?
-joseph
I can't be certain of when my seroconversion happened. I was tested for HIV and came negative on March 6, 2006. But I had a serious illness in early April of 2006. I vomitted several week-ends in a row and lost a lot of fluids. The 2nd week-end, I had to go to the ER. I could no longer eat anything or barely swallow. I had a high fever too. I lost about 10 pounds in one week (and I'm only 145, so that's a lot). I was treated with antibiotics, and everything cleared up quickly.
My doctor (who is an HIV specialist) did not correlate this to seroconversion at the time either, even though I'm in a high-risk group as well. I had several sex partners early in the year, but believed that I had had safe sex with every one. Obviously the oral sex was not as safe as I thought :-(.
2 months later, in late June I was diagnosed with chlamydia. I was freaked. Thus, I got retested for HIV. But I was negative for HIV antibodies again.
I got retested for HIV in late October as part of my annual physical, and was positive then, which was a complete surprise to me. I don't believe I had any risky behavior in between the June and October test, and therefore my HIV infection and seroconversion predates april .
Unfortunately my boyfriend, who had tested negative in late April, also tested positive in November, right after I got my result. I believe he got it from me ... Sadly IMO this is a case of the HIV tests being too unreliable and taking a long time to show positive results.
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Hi,
I can't be certain of when my seroconversion happened. I was tested for HIV and came negative on March 6, 2006. But I had a serious illness in early April of 2006. I vomitted several week-ends in a row and lost a lot of fluids. The 2nd week-end, I had to go to the ER. I could no longer eat anything or barely swallow. I had a high fever too. I lost about 10 pounds in one week (and I'm only 145, so that's a lot). I was treated with antibiotics, and everything cleared up quickly.
My doctor (who is an HIV specialist) did not correlate this to seroconversion at the time either, even though I'm in a high-risk group as well. I had several sex partners early in the year, but believed that I had had safe sex with every one. Obviously the oral sex was not as safe as I thought :-(.
2 months later, in late June I was diagnosed with chlamydia. I was freaked. Thus, I got retested for HIV. But I was negative for HIV antibodies again.
I got retested for HIV in late October as part of my annual physical, and was positive then, which was a complete surprise to me. I don't believe I had any risky behavior in between the June and October test, and therefore my HIV infection and seroconversion predates april .
Unfortunately my boyfriend, who had tested negative in late April, also tested positive in November, right after I got my result. I believe he got it from me ... Sadly IMO this is a case of the HIV tests being too unreliable and taking a long time to show positive results.
jesus, are you sure? do you remember when did you get infected? how come it took so long to the window period?
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Ninja:
Please refrain from posting in any other AIDSmeds.com Forum other than the "Am I Infected?" Forum.
Thank you.
Tim Horn