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September 24, 2023, 12:50:39 am
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Do I Have HIV? / Re: Mutual Masturbation and HIV risk
« Last post by Youssefhi on Today at 12:36:41 am »Thank you so much for your reply and for the effort done here on the forum
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Recent Posts
ugh. this is one of those wrong "hopes" I wish doctors would explain better.
ARVs sole purpose is to interrupt, at several different points, the life cycle of the HIV virus. The effect is that HIV is reduced, although sometimes it takes times, to undetectable. Once that happens, and as long as you remain undetectable, your body has the chance to replenish cd4s. Now how fast that happens is all up to the genetics that created your immune system. Some people rebound fast. Some don't. Some people have a "low" rebound. Some jump above 1000. So really the most important number to look at is the VL. As long as that remains low, HIV is unable to do much, if any, further damage to your body.
I do understand this, I was just being hopeful that my CD4 rebounded rather than went backwards. But yes, apart from a pesky cold in the past week, I have felt perfectly normally physically.
Of course, a lot of people end up caring about the cd4 number; but why? First, there's a huge number range of what is defined as "normal". The limits tend to be a little hazy too. is 400 or 500 the lower parameter? Is 1200 or 1600 a normal upper parameter? Then there's the pesky problem that the cd4 count is only a quantitative amount. The test can't determine the strength of those cd4s (a qualitative description). While most people need that average range of cd4s (400-1600), there are plenty of people who live healthy lives with cd4s in the 250-400 ranges.
Last, but not least, since cd4s can change by up to 100 points in one day, it's kind of hard to get anything other than a snapshot of the cd4 count at blood draw. That 400 result that you received could have easily been 300 or 500 on that same day. Sounds extreme, right? But if you did 4 cd4 tests in one day, you could quit easily see results all over that range.
Not to bore you with my 40yrs of living with HIV, let me tell you the short story of why worrying about cd4s is useless. My first test was a miniscule 5 cd4s. Ten years and a dozen regimens later, I was lucky to have a whopping 225. Another 15 yrs after that I was up to 350. In that 25 yrs I hadn't returned to the hospital, had two bouts of flu and about 4 colds. Quite frankly, since the last time I was hospitalized with AIDS (30ish yrs ago) and got onto newer meds, I've been getting healthier and healthier. Oddly enough, in the last 3 yrs, my cd4s have jumped to 650, and the only sickness I've had in yrs was covid 2 yrs ago. For a long time, I was like you hoping to reach the "normal" range, until I realized that it didn't matter. Keeping medicated to stay UD was all it took. It may have taken nearly 30 yrs to get into the normal range; but when I did, nothing changed. I was just as healthy and happy as I had always been.
Please, never apologize, you do not bore me. I have read your posts over and over. I regard guys like you very highly, I have a couple of friends, who like you, went through the wars and are like you, still here, healthy and happy. I know we have it "easy", with the modern medicines etc.
cd4 results are just a number, like blood pressure, that's too in flux to mean much - well, as long as they are above 200. Worry about keeping your viral load undetectable, and your cd4s will take care of themselves.
Please don't post about this again, thank you
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