Aniversary of sorts

[loop78]

It's been a year since I was most likely infected, and so far I've been doing rather well.

All in all I'm still pretty healthy and meds-free, and tough some annoying effects have started to come up, I'm not sure whether all of them are hiv related, a consequence of my high viral load or just related to getting older.

Since my diagnosis I have not had a single cold, while before I usually suffered a couple each year. Maybe it's just coincidence, but my pet theory is that's due to the immune activation hiv has caused in my body. Not something you wanna try at home, kids, but it's nice being free of runny noses and achy throats for a while.

On the other hand, there are the annoyances I said before: my stool has become permanently soft, not to a point that it is anything else than annoying, but something I do not want to worsen; I feel I have less of energy than before, need more hours of sleep to feel rested and my performance at the gym has taken an small hit; and my sight has worsened. This last condition is the one I tend to think is not at all related to hiv, but still it strikes me it's so sudden and timely. I had almost perfect sight one year ago, and since what I believe was my seroconversion I've been having difficulties focusing on distant objects,
and my field of vision feels narrower. These sight problems come and go, sometimes they make me feel even dizzy (maybe I have low grade fever when this happens, I'm not sure, but it feels like it), and some other times I see almost perfectly. It makes me think they might be related to spikes in viral load, but, yet again, maybe not.

All of this has made me decide I wanna start meds in my next visit to the id doctor. It seems my body has been unable to lower viral load to a sensible level, and I don't wanna risk the mid-term consequences of such a high immune activation. Besides, I'm in a serodiscordant relationship, and becoming undetectable would do a lot in terms of me being more relaxed while having sex.

Regarding the meds I'd choose if I have the option, well, I'm leaning towards the classic truvada+sustiva (I'm warier of the gastrointestinal effects of norvir-boosted PI's than of the psicological ones of sustiva... and Raltegavir is not yet approved for treatment naive patients).

I wanted to thank the people from these forums that helped me through my first steps in poz-land. Your help meant a lot, guys and girls!!! :-)

Hugs!

[Assurbanipal]

It's a tough choice you need to make, but I think you have made the right one.  With your viral load it doesn't look like you will be an LTNP.  So you will probably need to start sometime and starting at a higher CD4 count you are less likely to have side effects. 

And it is a comfort to know that you have done everything you can to reduce the risk that you will inadvertently pass the virus on.

Hope you have an uneventful start if that is what you choose.

A