todays blood draw

[tommy246]

today was my third blood teast since my diagnosis(neg jan 06) dec 08  cd4  535  vl 1600  % 16,  april09 cd4  635 vl 60,000 % 16.5 ,today cd4 545 ,vl 80,000, % 17. Today i saw a different doctor and she said if my viral load rises again i will need to start meds , i did have a bad dose of bronchitis and sininsitis which needed 2 weeks of antibiotics which i finished 2 weeks before my blood draw could this be responsible for the rise in viral load.

[physicsguy]

It's possible - it takes about 4-6 weeks for things to return to normal after having some sort of significant immune response. Don't read too much into a single number - both CD4+ counts and viral load counts are going to fluctuate around some slowly-varying average.  If the "slowly-varying average" starts being not-so-sudden, then it's time to start thinking about how to rectify that issue.

It sounds like that's the approach your doctor is taking (although I personally would be more conservative since your CD4 count looks fine).

[Inchlingblue]

  i did have a bad dose of bronchitis and sininsitis which needed 2 weeks of antibiotics which i finished 2 weeks before my blood draw could this be responsible for the rise in viral load.

As an aside: I recommend that you take probiotics ("good" bacteria) in order to re-build them in your gut, since they were all killed after the antiibiotics. This can avoid all sorts of problems such as fungal infections that can occur when one has low levels of good bacteria.

There are all sorts of yogurt products on the market now that include probiotics, such as Activia, you can also buy them in capsule form.

[tommy246]

In the usa what is considered a high viral load ie high enough to warrant taking meds even if you have a good cd4 count ?

[physicsguy]

There actually isn't a CDC recommendation regarding treatment and viral load.