POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: angelofdreams on July 17, 2006, 06:59:51 pm
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i still dont really understand the difference between CD4 and VL,
and when they are good and when its bad,
can someone explain that in human terms for me,
my doctor doesnt seem to be
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Viral load is the amount of virus in your blood. It is measured in copies per mililiter of blood. The normal amount of virus copies per mililiter is zero, as HIV is something that should not be present in human blood.
CD4 is the number of lymphocites wich have a cd4 receptor per mililiter of blood. The normal range is between 350-1000.
As the viral load increases, the CD4 lymphocites are more quickly destroyed. When you reach a cd4 count of 200 or below you have AIDS.
The percentage of cd4 is also important. 30% and above is the normal range. 14% or under is AIDS.
The goal of hiv treatment is to achieve an undetectable viral load (under 50 copies per mililiter), so that the cd4 cells are no longer destroyed and the immune system can recover.
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You might want to check out these two lessons....I think they will help you understand.
www.aidsmeds.com/lessons/TCellTest.htm
www.aidsmeds.com/lessons/VLTest.htm
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so the lower the viral load and the higher the CD4 count the better?
or am i wrong in that
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That is right. You want an undetectable viral load and a cd4 count above 350 and a percentage of, at least, a 30%.
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Hi Angel...hey, no worries about your question. I had the EXACT same confusion when I was first diagnosed. :-\ Felt like SUCH an ass for being so ignorant about HIV, but...can't change the past, right. :-[
Shane
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that isnt to difficult to understand then, wel at least it is when my doctor explains it,
i usually sit there thuinking he is on medication when he explains something
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am working my way trough all the lessons on here, just printing them of the last few days,
think i should print them one by one, but hey, there is some sence in my madness
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i have a simple choo choo explanation.
Now, it is a bit more complicated than this, but this gives you the basic idea of some of the interrelationship between the two.
Your immune system is the choo choo. (train for all you grown ups :P)
the track it goes down is your CD4's.... the closer your cd4's get to zero... the closer you are to running off the end of the track.... you run off the track at cd4 of zero. (that's kinda bad... ever seen a derailment?) Having a high cd4 means you have plenty of track left which is good.
the speed at which you go down the cd4 track is your viral load. The higher the viral load, the faster you go down the track till you run off it. High viral load is bad, it means you speed down the cd4 track will go faster... and we know what happens when you run off it. *reminder* running off the cd4 track is a bad bad thing.
Low viral load means your speed down the cd4 traintrack is slow or stopped. that is what you want... to stop the speed of your choo choo down that track.
high cd4 = good
low viral load = good
Meds are often the brakes we need to stop our speeding down that track and even to put our choochoo in reverse. :)
I love choo choos.
Anyway, hope this simplistic explanation helped a bit
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You go Bailey! Great explanation! I love Choo-choo trains too! ;D
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woot! It sure helped me when I first heard that explanation... putting it in relative, understandable terms helps at times.
especially when dealing with things that seem so abstract at times.
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???
i dont really care for trains much but did like the explanation, it does give a rather simple view on something rather complicated
xxx