POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: sftrek on July 02, 2006, 02:45:50 pm
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How long does the seroconversion process take from start to finish? I started about 3 weeks ago and still feel bad. My doc told me I had converted 5 out 10 so far. Will I feel better when this process completes?
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I have never heard of seroconversion lasting that long. It seems seriously unusual to me. Normally, ARS lasts a week to ten days. Mine was roughly a week and change.
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Mine lasted for about three weeks. The worst three weeks i can remember.... feeling weak, low fever, sweating like a pig, muscle ache, diarrhea, swollen lymphodes, you name it... i had it all.
Be patient.... it will disappear eventually...
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Mine lasted about 2 1/2 weeks.IT will get better you just gotta give it time.Hopefully it will be over soon for ya.I know how much it sucks.
Chrism
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I had three one week periods that I felt miserable which stretched over a three and a half month period. Between the three weeks of misery I felt sick weak and just awful.
BB
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With so many people apparently taking WAY longer than the LESSONS mentions for seroconversion, perhaps someone should forward this thread to themoderators so they can alter the lessons?
In addition, all the science I have read insists that ARS does not space itself out over time, but comes all at once and is gone. Any anomolies here really need to talk to the CDC and/or their doctor to discern why they fall so far outside scientific perameters.
In addition, catching someone in the middle of a seroconversion, you'd think that there would be some sort of chemical intervention possible to minimize the initial CD4 damage.
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If mine was when I think it was, it lasted about two weeks. Unfortunately, every year since I've had seasonal allergies at the same time of the year, which is what i was diagnosed with at the time, but it was shortly after my boyfriend and I stopped using condoms so that says BINGO! to me. :-\
edited to say: EX! Ex-boyfriend. Just wanted to make that clear!
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I didn't have any symptoms of seroconversion.
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Hi Jonathan,
I thought ARS was something different from seroconversionsymptoms. ARS is, as far as I know, a word that is not used by doctors anymore, it meant Aids related syndrome and it was a sign that an immune system was about to break down. Nightsweats, fevers, diarrhea.
I think the length of the period of complaints when you get infected depends on how low resistance gets and how long it takes your body to recover the resistance.
Is there a new meaning for the letters ARS nowadays? Did I miss something?
Coen
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Sftrek,
You will start to feel better. Don't worry, things will start to resolve themselves. If not, then you can always talk to your doctor about going on treatment (at least temporarily to allow your body to recover).
It's hard for me to tell when I was within ARS and when it was just regular old HIV symptoms but I would say my symptoms lasted 2 weeks (diarrhea, stomach pains, hives and swollen lymph nodes). Now they all weren't going on during the full 2 weeks, some issues came and went but the whole experience lasted about 2 weeks. Although the swollen lymph nodes lasted much longer than 2 weeks and actually didn't really go down until I started treatment (maybe a month after converting).
- Cliff
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ARS-Acute Retroviral Syndrome
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Yes, thanks Rod, for the ARS definition!
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ARS stands for Acute Retroviral Syndrome. It is the body's initial attempt to fight the virus, and characterized by a variety of symptoms. It is also called seroconversion sickness.
<< The Early Effect of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy During Acute Retroviral Syndrome is Associated with the Time of Starting and the Duration of Symptoms.
Conf Retroviruses Opportunistic Infect 2003 Feb 10-14;10th: abstract no. 514
Vanhems P, Voirin N, Routy JP, Baratin D, Legault M, Trepo C, Miaihles P, Boulassel MR, Livrozet JM, Touraine JL, Fabry J; Edouard Herriot Hosp and INSERM U271, Lyon, France
Background. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) during acute retroviral syndrome (ARS) provides effective suppression of HIV replication and may limits escape mutations>>
There seems to be an ongoing debate as to whether initiating HAART therapy at the serconversion stage as opposed to months or years later makes much of a difference, I suspect that the more we learn about the immune system and it's reconstruction during HAART (as well as its destruction during ARS) the better equipped we will be to fight HIV in the earliest stages.
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The real bad shit lasted about 4 days, then I felt real fatigued for about a month.
Thomas
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About 1.5 to 2 weeks.....and like Thomas said....REAL TIRED for about the next 6 weeks for me.
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I thnk I was sick sick for 2 weeks, but somehow only missed 3 days of work. But it was nearly a month and a half before I felt anywhere near normal again.
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just like rapidrod....no symptoms
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I don't recall a seroconversion either. Not unless it disguised itself as a normal cold or flu.
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No recollection of such events.
Shane
(who is feeling fortunate for that)
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Very New 2 this only knowing that I am + 4 going on 2 weeks and don't recall ever having any symptoms during the window of time when I must have been infected. But 4 what it's worth in the paperwork they gave me it says that the process may take anywhere from 3-12 weeks and that 99% of us will seroconvert within 6months
Hope it helps and that U start 2 feel better VERY VERY SOON
JAG
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As best I can tell, I seroconverted in Novermber 04. It was the flu unlike any flu I ever had before, swollen glands, fever, chills, rash, sore throat, but no upper respiratory problems, and it lasted 6 days. A routine HIV test in August 05 was poz for ELISA with an indeterminate Western Blot. The following December they did a Western Blot again and it was STILL indeterminate - only two of four bands reactive. No one has been able to explain this to me.
I guess I'm one of the 1%.
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No seroconversion for me. I was only diagnosed after my doctor ordered a routine antibody test because I had been engaging in risk behaviours. I would have had no idea I was poz otherwise. :o
MtD
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Never too late to learn. Funny that ARS is a different thing than 15 years ago. Confusing.
I had a skin reaction and I was very tired. Lasted about a month.
Coen
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two things I had never heard about in the 14 years I had hiv before this MB were cd% and seroconversion,even though I read as much as possible about hiv. this is still the only place I hear about either.