Q and A

Question

How long can I live without HIV drugs?

Can you please tell me how long can someone live without taking HIV medication?

Answer

The best way to answer this is to say that modern HIV treatment (ART) means that life expectancy is not affected by being HIV positive. HIV positive people with access to treatment can be expected to live as long as before they became positive.

Without using HIV treatment, life expectancy is related to how quickly your CD4 count drops and how low it gets.

Without treatment, some people see their CD4 count drop to under 200 within a few years of infection, while others people can go for  5-10 years or longer before they need treatment.

See also: Your CD4 count and the risk of becoming ill.

This is different to saying how long you could live. However, without treatment, once your CD4 count falls below 200 life expectancy drops very dramatically.

Note: This answer was updated in January 2017 from a question first posted in November 2011.

368 comments

  1. Janice

    IM in shock female with HIV Positive

  2. Roy Trevelion

    Hi Roy,

    I’m sorry to hear this news about your close friend. It’s good that he is absolutely healthy. This can mean he has time to for the news to sink in. Some aspects of being HIV positive take time to come to terms with. Please see this resource for when you’ve just found out you’re HIV positive.

    However, it’s important to be ready to start ART before you do it. There’s plenty of info on this website that he could look at to put his mind at rest.

    At the moment people who are HIV positive have to take ART for the rest of their lives. But modern ART is easier to take and has fewer side effects than the early ARVs.

    Here’s the Introduction to ART. And ART in Pictures shows you how HIV treatment can reduce HIV to such low levels in the blood that it can’t be detected. This means that HIV cannot continue to damage your immune system.

    Ayurvedic treatment is not recommended to treat HIV. So unfortunately it won’t work.

    The positive news is that because there are relatively high numbers of people living with both HIV and diabetes there is a good level understanding around treatment.

  3. Roy

    I have a very close friend who is 48years and recently was diagnosed to be HIV positive in september 2018. He is absolutely healthy and was advised by a friend that if he starts ART, he has to take it for life and the medication has a lot of side effects, esp since he is diabetic. Because of that he is not ready to start treatment ispite of repeated requests from me. Hi viral load at the last test was 148000 copies and his CD4 count dropped from 400 to 340. I am worried for him but he is refusing to start ART. I am not sure how to convince him. He says that he needs some time and try ayurvedic treatment before actually starting medication.

  4. Roy Trevelion

    Hi Muttu,

    Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Just finding out you’re HIV positive can be a tough time for all of us.

    But it will probably take a while for the news to sink in. Some aspects of being HIV positive take time to come to terms with.

    Please see this link that talks about how we feel at this time. It also says take your time because things will get easier. It talks about moving forward and what comes next. And that it’s important to try to connect with other HIV positive people.

    The good thing is you’ve already connected to me, and I’ve been HIV positive for a long time.

  5. Muttu

    Hi last week I did my HIV test and I got Positive. So now tell me how long years I’ll be live?

  6. Roy Trevelion

    Hi Kundan,

    Sorry, I don’t quite understand your question. But here is a Q&A on different tests used to test for HIV.

  7. Kundan

    So during this period, is HIV detected in blood test like western blot or Eliza, the period of 5-10 years???
    Please reply

  8. Harrison

    Hello, this is my story of living with hiv for 23years without medication.

    I was brought up by my parents who never knew there status till 2007 when I was 12 years both of my parents became very sick and was found to be Hiv positive and upon realizing that, they started treatment (Medication) and they also opened up to me concerning their status.

    Unfortunately they forgot to take me for check-up because my health was very fine, I never used to get sick and being a Christian i have never engaged myself in a sexual relationship and till now am still a virgin.

    Then after some years I stated getting sick like some time I get flue and sore throats but that didn’t even bother to them and myself because I thought it’s normal.

    In February 2018 when I got sick and went to the clinic were the nurse advised me to going for a test, which I did and the results come out positive.

    The doctors could not believe that I was born with Hiv yet managed to live without medication for 23years, without any serious illness so they told me to call my parents.

    But at time I became stressed, I thought that is this is the end of my life, I stopped having relationships stated feeling sorry for myself and when I informed my parent about my status there were not conversed so they took me to for more tests and found out that it was true I was Hiv positive then they encouraged me to start my medication which I did.

    And since then am doing ok and am now happy that I know my current position in life and I hope that my story will encourage someone out there .

  9. Roy Trevelion

    Hi Rejoice,

    Are you able to get HIV medication where you live? Do you have an HIV clinic you can go to? Please let us know how are you doing and if you feel well.

  10. Rejoice

    I am HIV positive and I am not taking any medication am I going die

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