Holy Frick......AZT?

[FiercenBed]

aaa....apt w/ neurologist today<ob boy nother drs apt> and as usual not necessarily bad just the typical ......"i dont know"news. not going in2 details but my new dr wizard 2 ordered all these test. brain scan....mris...therez 2 more i dont even recall. anyway in the middle of the tests he sez hez taking my 1st mri to another doc and hed be back. oooo great. so of course iv got my ear to the door and he walk in2 the office 10 minutes later and sez to the sec ratray, "get dr  xxx<my doc> on the phone. JESUS FRICKEN CHRIST IV GOTA BRIAN TUMOR.....lol. i laugh because 'iv never gotten good news from a doc.
so anyway i know my docs outa town<in vegas....jeeesh>. so ms Secretary starts looking for my doc and calls his office. im like y waste this womans time? i opened the door and said hez outa town  want his cell phone? she was shocked....lol

any way they talk....w/ my ear against the wall....seriously:) the other doc pops back in and starts rattling of all this stuff. im thinking fuck it took me 6 months to learn about hiv now iv gota learn neurology.

ok ok enough....so my doc calls my cell phone bout hour later. the jest of the story is the neurologist wants to change my meds. dosnt everybody....im not suppressed. i needs to bypass the 'brain blood barrier'. he sez we need to think about azt......AZT....I SHOUTED. they still make that sh&t?

well i dont know if im on board w/ this train. any azt alumnus round here?

[aztecan]

Hey Fierce,

I have been on AZT for close to 11 years. It works like a charm for me and does cross the blood/brain barrier.

Can there be side effects? Does the pope wear ugly dresses?

But that doesn't mean there will be side effects. Try to keep that in mind.

I am not trying to second-guess your docs, but one reason crossing the blood/brain barrier is important is HIV can do a number on the brain. It could be there is some issue needing to be addressed.

I would have a heart-to-heart with the doc, or, in this case, the docs, and find out exactly what is going on.

Don't be afrraid of AZT. I hear many people talk about the "what ifs." They are so worried about what may happen a decade from now, they overlook the gorilla in the living room.

Talk with your docs. Find out what is going on and why the AZT discussion came up in the first place.

Let me know how things turn out , if you would.

HUGS,

Mark

[FiercenBed]

thanx for the reply aztcam! i was starting to believe there was no one out there on azt. yea ur right a new doc <nurologist> has dump a whole new list of problems on me along w/ a battery of test.

itz bn a rough nine months and cuurent meds aint working. lost 30 lbs over a year and still kinds thin so the azt 'thining' thing scares me! but it seems like therez a price to pay for anything that comes outa the bottle. ur pic gives me some confidence.....thanx!

[budndallastx]

Doesn't Sustiva and Truvada cross the blood brain barrier also?  I would think those would be better alternatives to AZT considering the side effects.

[FiercenBed]

dont u think?....iv bn kinda wanting to stay away from the stustiva due to the nurotic side effects. but i think ill swallow the sustiva b4 the azt!

[bimazek]

      FiercenBed please tell us what your numbers are like, how long have  u been poz, how long on meds, on what meds, how long ago were you hiv exposed, did you do poppers in past or long ago, smoke?

good luck, they have lots of new good treatments now so hang in there

[FiercenBed]

current vl 2,500 cd 410. diag 6/06 cd4 104 vl 256k. they say poz 10 years, but find that hard to believe. yea i smoke and poppers now and then. dont tell me poppers r the cause of my medical woes....lol. i think im gonna drop the kaletra & truvada instead of adding the sustiva and just go for the atripla. @ least that should make the doctors happy.

[Miss Philicia]

bimazek, you REPEATEDLY bring up popper use on this board but NEVER provide any medical research to support your paranoia.  You've been asked repeatedly but you always chose to ignore it.  Is it too much to ask that you either provide the research for further discussion?  Otherwise you're just repeatedly spreading erroneous, outdated information.

[FiercenBed]

thanx philly......with all the other vices iv had to give up it sounded odd that poppers would cause doom and gloom. of all the questions iv bn asked by drs..... do u do poppers has not bn 1 of them.

[Miss Philicia]

Well, like anything I wouldn't advise sitting around the house sniffing endless streams of little brown bottles hours on hours on hours, but I highly doubt many people do that.

Now, there WAS a poppers scare in the early days of HIV, and there are the supreme AIDS denialists folks like Duesberg who latched on to this as some sort of key ingredient.  I just find it preposterous.