Question
Are my fever and cough related to my CD4 count?
21 April 2008. Related: All topics, CD4 and viral load, Opportunistic infections, Starting treatment.
My questions are, whether it is because my cd4 count is low (97) that I got sick like high fever for a week now?
Secondly, what is the cause of tonsillar angina? I just came out from this pain, and now I got dry cough which cause me high fever every night.
Answer
Although HIV may or may not be related to your symptoms, it is more important that you show these to your doctor and get their opinion.
I have no information on ‘tonsillar angina’. I’m not sure how anything related to your tonsils would have an impact on angina (difficulty breathing due to reduced blood flow to the heart).
If your TB is active again, it is really important that this is treated. Although you didn’t give details, it sounds like you are already on HIV meds (because your CD4 count is now 97 and it sounds like it was 20).
You can take TB drugs and HIV drugs at the same but because of some interactions, this may be modifying your HIV treatment.
Checking you are not resistant to the TB meds is important, as is finishing the whole course of treatment. This will really improve your long-term treatment outlook.
Thanks very much for your answer. I went to see another ID doc at Bumrungrad international hospital Bangkok and the doc drew my blood for test. After all those antibiotics I took, become a problem to my liver – AST 103H ALT 158H.
Another thing is that my TB come back again because I didn’t take it up to the 6 months required, because by then I had not tested for HIV. That was last September, and I was diagonised in December 2007. Pls advice me what to do, with TB meds can decrease my CD4 to 20 again?