Living with HIV: From Detection to Management

It is quite funny that despite the noise made about HIV sometime ago, people still act in ignorance about their sexual safety. These days it appears the noise has reduced or should I just say we have accepted it as a societal norm now.

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HIV needs no introduction, but the only thing some people know about it is that you can get it through sexual transmission and nothing more. I am here to shed some more light, maybe just a little more than you already know about it, particularly about how to know you have it and also possible treatment options.
HIV is no joke, an article published showed that from 1983 to 2022, it has claimed about 40.4 million lives, and that to me is not a small number, you can imagine how many more lives it has claimed from that time till now.

The presence of HIV can be identified through various ways, usually through a saliva or blood test. A test called the antigen-antibody test is done by collecting blood from a vein. The antigens are substances that are found in the HIV itself, they would most likely begin to show within a few weeks after exposure to HIV. With this test, a patient may not show a positive result until 2-6 weeks after being exposed, this is because the immune system naturally makes antibodies when it gets exposed to HIV.

Nucleic acid tests can be used to test for the presence of HIV in a body, this test looks out for a virus in the blood, called viral load. Blood from the vein is used for this test. This is usually the first type of test that can be used to determine a positive status after being exposed to HIV.

The antibody test is another test type that is been used to determine the presence of HIV. This test looks out for antibodies to HIV in saliva or blood. Most fast test cases are usually antibody tests, it can even be done at home. An infected person may not test positive to this test type until after 3-12 weeks after infection.

After testing positive for HIV, doctors have to carry out other tests to determine the stage of the disease and the best treatment that can be used. We have the CD4T cell count test, the CD4 T cells are white blood cells in the body that HIV targets and destroys, even without showing any type of symptoms, HIV infection could turn into AIDS when the CD4T cell count gets lower than 200.

A viral load test is another type of test that measures the amount of virus in the blood. When a patient starts to receive treatment for HIV, the aim is that the viral load becomes so low that it doesn't show during a test, this also limits the chances of further infecting another person as well as other HIV-related complications.

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Medicine medicine-resistant test is also conducted because some HIV strains are often resistant to medications, with this test, the medical expert can guide you through alternative procedures.

Further complications from HIV are very possible, a lab test is used to check out for complications and other types of infections. Liver or kidney damage, urinary tract infection, STIs, tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, or C, toxoplasmosis, or even cytomegalovirus.

In the beginning, HIV was considered a death sentence, but now, thanks to advancements in science, there is a treatment for HIV called ART. It is a combination of HIV medications on a regular schedule, as prescribed by medical experts. Of course, this treatment option would not cure HIV, but it will help a patient living with it to live a long, and healthy life.

Staying on ART helps to keep the immune system of the affected person strong, reduces the chances of an infection, limits the chances of getting to a treatment-resistant HIV level, and then also reduces the chances of passing the virus to others.

During treatment, remember the purpose is to keep your viral load low, the fact that, you did not test positive at some point does not mean the virus has miraculously disappeared, it is still there, it is just the treatments doing the good job they were designed to do.