New positive

[Pirata]

Hello everyone, I have been reading the forum for about 3 weeks and it has been a great help for me. I am going to start by letting you know that I was diagnosed as HIV positive on February 5th. It was a big surprise for me, because I was not having that much sex in my life. I was in a path of changing many things on my life  and sex was one of them. The diagnosis was very hard also because I am 50 years old and during my life I have seen people and a very close friend died of AIDS, so I had those pictures on my mind. When the doctor saw me, he said it was a manageable disease, but still I had those references on my mind.  I did my labs and my VL was 121,000 copies/mL and CD4 of 100. The doctor prescribes me Byktarvy  and after a month I had my second test results VL 155 and CD4 140, he also prescribed an antibiotic to avoid opportunistic infections. I had my appointment with him almost a week after my blood tests, and he told me at that point I probably was already undetectable and that was going to allow my CD4 count to get better. Even my CD4 count was low, I never got extremely sick, just a cold right after my diagnosis.
It has been a process, I was afraid about the impact that this virus was going to have in my daily life. I consider myself very active, go to gym 5 days a week, work a full time job, walk my dogs twice a day and go for long walks with them during the weekend. The good news is that nothing of that has changed, I still have the energy to do that. I haven’t had any side effects, and just today I was thinking that I have started to feel better about myself. I didn’t blame any body for what happened, I took the responsibility for my choices and for the very first moment, I decided to focus on my health.
As I said at the beginning, reading your posts has helped me a lot, so thanks everybody and I will keep you posted on my new results Odín June. Hugs

[harleymc]

Hello
 welcome to the world of wonder medications.

I'm 57 and unfortunately arthritis is taking it's toll on my activity levels but I can still cycle.

Keeping active, and your dogs will keep you in a great space mentally, so keep doing the things you enjoy.

Hugs back to you   

[Phantom2019]

Tq 4 the sharing
I was diagnosed hiv+ on 31.3.19..
Now almost 2 week taking arv...unfortunately I hv some side effects ..my cd4 68....tomorow gonna see doctor discuss bout the rash maybe bcoz the antibiotic...

[Jim Allen]

Hiya Pirata,

Welcome and, glad to hear that reading the forum has helped.

Sounds like the Biktarvy is working well for you, as one would expect and you have not allowed your HIV status to change your daily life. Keep rocking on and, we are here for you if you need us.

Best, Jim

P.S

walk my dogs twice a day

I love dogs, have a border-collie myself. What kind of dogs do you have? 

[Pirata]

Hey Jim, I really try to continue living my life as I was before, sometimes is not easy, specially when you start thinking about the wrong choices you have made, but I try no to focus on the past, this is my present and my future depends on it, so I need to do my best now. I have a mix (black lab and German shepherd) and another one  mix (pit and Dawson) they are really great!

[Pirata]

Thanks phantom and Harley. Panthom, hope you are doing better man, I hope it’s going to get better through the time.
Harley that’s nice that you keep being active we old people have to work harder on that but we can do this