Beginning Treatment Soon

[tavopav]

Hi everyone, I've posted on this site before my diagnosis was confirmed.

I finally received my results:
My CD4 is at 134 with a VL of 120,000.

It honestly seems like a grim start. Knowing that I am at AIDS levels is very frightening. I am asymptomatic, though which is encouraging.

I am also encouraged by my doctor. She has a great attitude and I feel confident in her abilities.
ATM, I am waiting on my genotype tests to come back before beginning treatment.

I am practicing with Vitamin D supplements and Sulfamethoxazole to help me get in the groove of taking meds on time.

Any advice on info from the community would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you guys for all you do for one another.

[Cpt.Mauzer]

Getting one of those daily pill planner things helps me (one with a slot for every day) so that I know for sure i took it or not.  Also setting up an event in your phone's calendar to repeat everyday for some arbitrarily long number of years so that you won't happen to just let your designated medication time slip by unnoticed.

I personally take my meds at night, I chose this mostly because I knew i was going to probably be nauseated from them so I just wanted to sleep through it.  Now that my body is used to it the pills don't bother me at all...but it's just become habit to take my pill at 10pm...so why change it =/

[Ann]

Tavo, I've moved your thread into the Just Tested section as that is the more appropriate place for your concerns right now.

It's not necessarily a grim start - after all, you weren't diagnosed while deathly ill. There is no reason to think that you won't see an increase in CD4s or that you won't get to an undetectable viral load in good time.

I just finished writing an explaination about this very thing in another thread - and rather than writing it all out again, you can click here to read it.

Obviously the bit about recently having shingles doesn't apply to you, but the rest is relevant.

Your doctor is doing all the right things - she has you on a prophylactic antibiotic and she's running a genotype test. You're going to be ok. Don't let that "aids" diagnosis bother you, it's just a medical term. Just think of yourself as hiv positive and don't let the terminology scare you or get you down.

I also have a pill tray and I'd be lost without it. I have one that has seven separate strips of compartments, one for every day of the week, with four dosing times for each day. I use one of these because being on a once-a-day combo, I can fill the whole thing and not have to refill for four weeks. The first week I use the morning compartments, the second week the noon compartments, and so on through the month. I can tell at a glance if I've taken my meds or not.



Ann