Are recommendations the same for men and women?

Very few differences in HIV treatment between women and men have been reported.

A few side effects may be different but many are very similar.

One difference is that at the same CD4 count, women can have a slightly lower viral load than men. Some studies also show that women have a higher risk of becoming ill than men at the same CD4 count.

This may be a reason for women to start treatment slightly earlier (at a higher CD4 count) than men.

Having lived with HIV since July 1996, it never dawned on me that I had never come to terms with my diagnosis. For all those years I was in survival mode, and I had survived.

I always advocated for treatment and have been on treatment, including through two pregnancies, though I never had symptoms and never had a CD4 count less than 460. So when for the first time I had persisent painful lumps in my neck, you can guess what happened!

I realised that, yes, the HIV test in 1996 was not wrong, and yes, after 13 years of claiming to be HIV-positive, I actually am HIV-positive!

I kept saying to myself “it is true, I am HIV-positive!” How do you come to terms with something you have known and lived with for so long?

The mind is very complex. I think the child in me had wished this nasty thing away for so long – ackowldeging yet not acknowledging.

— Faith, Luton