symptoms

[powerpuff]

so does anyone know if a symptomatic shows desease progression quicker. if one one newly diagnose and symptomatic one should go on meds whould they live still normally with meds today?

[Matty the Damned]

Puff,

Forgive me for asking this (it's early in the morning and the brainfog has set in) but are you HIV positive? Ie have you tested positive and had that result confirmed?

MtD

[xyahka]

I guess it depends on what you call symptomatic... i mean if you are just diagnosed and shows opportunistic infections and your cd4 is low... then you might be diagnosed Aids (it means you are newly diagnosed but not recently infected... you might have had the disease longer than you were aware of)

I guess you have to focus not on when you were diagnosed but on the results of your tests once you were diagnosed. Some people are diagnosed early so they can still wait before starting meds, others are diagnosed late and have to start meds immediatly.

Make sure of getting CD4 and viral load test done, then you will know where you are standing at the moment. Despite using or not using meds... we all can have normal lives, don't worry.

Juan Carlos

[Ann]

PP,

You already asked about this in the Women's forum, so I've cut and pasted my reply to you here.

People aren't usually put on meds according to their symptoms. Meds are normally only considered when the numbers say they should be. What are your numbers like?

You can't go by just one set of numbers either. You need to get a few results under your belt so you can see what kind of trend, if any, you have.

One thing you have to realise - and Queen will attest to this - you might have great numbers but still have what I call "niggly" stuff going on. By that I mean symptoms of having hiv, but stuff that isn't serious enough to consider the meds for. The meds can bring their own problems.

If you haven't already, please check out the Lessons and read through the ones on what your  lab results mean as well as the ones on starting treatment. If you have more questions after reading, let us know.

And by the way, I just read through your posting history and no where do you mention your numbers. They are very important for you to know.

Also, in reading about your testing history, I'm wondering if you had your postitive result confirmed. If you haven't, you need to get to a doctor and have another ELISA hiv antibody test, confirmed with a Western Blot if the ELISA is positive. Only if the Western Blot is also postive should you consider yourself positive. click here for diagnostic test information

If you've already had confirmation, then you still need to get to a doctor for more blood tests to determine your CD4 and Viral Load counts.

Ann