Welcome to the Pre-HAART Long-Term Survivors Forum!

[POZ Forum Moderators]

This forum is a safe place for pre-HAART long-term survivors (PHLTS), defined as people living with HIV who tested positive for the virus before the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1996. This forum is a result of PHLTS members petitioning for a place to discuss issues unique to those who lived with a diagnosis of HIV through the initial decades of the AIDS epidemic.

We hope members will use this forum to discuss experiences unique to long-term HIV survival, including extensive antiretroviral use, long-term side effects and a long history of bereavement. Many aspects of long-term HIV survival are not the same as those faced by members more recently diagnosed with the virus. In turn, this section is being maintained to allow PHLTS a place to discuss issues that are relevant to their segment of the HIV community.

We imagine that the information contained in this section will be very informative and we encourage all members of the AIDSmeds Forums to read the discussions herein. However, given the creation of this section by and for PHLTS members, we ask that ONLY PHLTS MEMBERS post in this forum. Should a non-PHLTS member find a topic of interest in this section and wish to comment, we encourage creating a new post in another forum—i.e., Living With HIV or Questions about Treatment and Side Effects—inviting PHLTS members to comment.

When PHLTS members discover a non-PHLTS member posting here, rather than responding to them yourselves, we request that you hit the "Report to Moderator" button found in the bottom right-hand corner of that post. If their post has not been acknowledged in the thread, it can simply be removed. The non-PHLTS member will also be contacted privately by a moderator and asked to read the PHLTS Welcome Thread.

Thank you for your cooperation.

For further information on the POZ forums, including posting guidelines, please visit the Welcome Thread found in the Living with HIV forum.

Enjoy!