POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: YeahImPoz on July 13, 2011, 01:28:30 pm
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I lost my life partner to AIDS a few years ago. I also have several good friends with HIV so I am knowledgeable about the meds and opportunistic infections etc. I used to get tested every year, but I guess after 15 years of negative tests and no change in my sexual practices I got complacent. Got tested 2 months ago for the first time in 6 years and was positive. I was surprised but dealing with it okay til my labs came back and my T-cells were 77. I was shocked and confused. To this day I have never had a single symptom associated with HIV that I know of - not even thrush. No night sweats, no swollen lymph nodes, hell I don't even remember having a fever in the last 5 years. Every person I've ever known with HIV has begun to have illnesses when the CD4 got in the 200's - thrush, shingles, TB, Crypto, sweats. I'm not complaining but how common is it to drop all the way below 100 and never have a noticeable symptom? I'm encouraged by that fact but scared to death I will get something serious or life threatening b4 my immune system can reconstitute
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Welcome to the forums.
I am sure things will turn around for you very soon.
Wish you luck :)
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First, welcome! I can't provide you the answers from a statistical POV, but I know a lot of people who got their HIV diagnosis at the same time as their AIDS diagnosis. I was asymptomatic until I was in the single digits. Ditto for several friends. Hopefully your doctor is prescribing something to combat OI's while waiting for your numbers to rise.
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I lost my life partner to AIDS a few years ago. I also have several good friends with HIV so I am knowledgeable about the meds and opportunistic infections etc. I used to get tested every year, but I guess after 15 years of negative tests and no change in my sexual practices I got complacent. Got tested 2 months ago for the first time in 6 years and was positive. I was surprised but dealing with it okay til my labs came back and my T-cells were 77. I was shocked and confused. To this day I have never had a single symptom associated with HIV that I know of - not even thrush. No night sweats, no swollen lymph nodes, hell I don't even remember having a fever in the last 5 years. Every person I've ever known with HIV has begun to have illnesses when the CD4 got in the 200's - thrush, shingles, TB, Crypto, sweats. I'm not complaining but how common is it to drop all the way below 100 and never have a noticeable symptom? I'm encouraged by that fact but scared to death I will get something serious or life threatening b4 my immune system can reconstitute
Hi, welcome to the forums. My CD-4 count was 8 and my VL was a half million. I had NO symptoms two weeks before my dx. I was admitted to the hospital because I thought I had an upper respiratory infection that I could not shake.
This disease is weird. There are folks with fantastic numbers who have more chronic illness than those with worse numbers.
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Hey Yeah,
As others said, it is not uncomon for people to have low T cell counts without symptoms.
I would count my lucky stars.
I presume you are also taking Bactrim as a prophylaxis, or if you can't take the sulfa drugs, then Dapsone?
Glad you have joined in, by the way.
HUGS,
Mark
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Thanks, I very much appreciate the input and encouragement. Yes, I'm taking Bactrim and Azythromycin in addition to my Atripla. Got my first labs back yesterday and my viral load is already down to 33 copies or essentially undetectable. My doctor said be patient with the CD4 increase. He said a reasonable hope/goal would be go from 77 to 200 in one year, and eventually back to as high as 400. But drewm, please confirm that I am looking at your numbers correctly. You had a CD4 count of 8 in May / June 2010, and 323 six months later ?? Good for you - that's awesome !
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It's great you are having a good reaction to the meds. Do be careful about too much sun this summer though (Bactrim can be a bit nasty with that).
And welcome to the forums
Assurbanipal