Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Potential Benefits of Treatment During Early HIV Infection

Preliminary data indicate that treatment of early HIV infection with combination ART improves laboratory markers of disease progression. The data, though limited, indicate that treatment of early HIV infection may also decrease the severity of acute disease; lower the viral set point,18-20 which can affect disease progression rates in the event therapy is stopped reduce the size of the viral reservoir and decrease the rate of viral mutation by suppressing viral replication and preserving immune function. Because early HIV infection often is associated with high viral loads and increased infectiousness and ART use by HIV-infected individuals reduces transmission to discordant sexual partners, treatment during this stage of infection is expected to substantially reduce the risk of HIV transmission. In addition, although data are limited and the clinical relevance unclear, the profound loss of gastrointestinal lymphoid tissue that occurs during the first weeks of infection may be mitigated by initiating ART during early HIV infection. Many of the potential benefits described above may be more likely to occur with treatment of acute infection, but they also may occur if treatment is initiated during recent HIV infection.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

HIV treatment


Most people with HIV turn up at sex condition clinics or expert HIV clinics that have doctors and other condition professionals trained in HIV care. Even if you do not need to start HIV treatment at this stage, regular blood tests will tell you about the condition of your inoculated organized whole and indicate when you should think about starting.

Before you start alluring anti-HIV drugs, or if you need to twitch to a new conjunction, you should have a numeral of blood tests. Viral weight and CD4 tests will tell you if your HIV is progressing and about the healthfulness of your immune organization. When you start or alteration a stimulant consortium, a viral burden will be done within the first month, to repress that the drugs are working. After this, testing is usually performed every three to four months, although some doctors may complete tests more often to start out with and less regularly once you are established on treatment and doing well.
Once you are on HIV treatment, you will have tests to capacity liver and kidney occupation and the levels of fat (cholesterol) and sugar in your blood, to assess any effects of the drugs on these systems.