Question
What does a CD4 count of 42 mean?
26 August 2011. Related: All topics, CD4 and viral load, Starting treatment.
I found that i was positive a year back, i am on art and my cd4 count is 42. What does this suggest?
Answer
Thanks for your question.
I hope you are finding life easier as you get used to HIV. Getting a diagnosis is difficult but it is good that you are now on treatment.
Your CD4 count is a marker of how strong your immune system is, and 42 is pretty low. This means that you are still at risk of HIV-related symptoms until it gets higher because of your ARV treatment.
I am assuming that your CD4 count was lower when you were diagnosed. When starting treatment at a CD4 count below 50, it can take a year to reach 100 and another year perhaps to reach 200.
During this time the risk of infections is lower than if you were not on treatment but until you get to 200 you should also be prescribed an antibiotic called Septrin.
Also, while your CD4 count is below 50, your doctor should examine your eyes to check you do not have vision problems relating to an infection called CMV.
If your CD4 count has not gone up over the last year, then you should ask your doctor to explain these results in case alternative treatments could be used.
Here are a couple of links to infromation about CD4 counts.
https://i-base.info/ttfa/section-1/17-cd4-count-as-a-surrogate-marker
https://i-base.info/ttfa/section-1/19-interpreting-cd4-results-cd4-count-and-cd4-percentage
I found that I am HIV on the 22nd December, my CD4 is 188.
Hi Vicky,
Your friend has a low CD4 count and also TB. Its going to take her body some time to recover and get stronger. How long this will take, I really don’t know. But if she takes her TB meds and ARVs as prescribed then she should get better. Her weight should also being to increase.
Dear Sir,
My friend got 58 in Cd4 result,
Having symptoms if TB also,medicine of TB started.
Also HIV medicine also started
Her weight loss at least 6-8kgs
When she recover her fit ness so that I know now much time to recover.
Please Tell how much time take’s for fit
Hi Asana
The combination of both a positive test results and a low CD4 count means these results are likely to be very accurate.
It is important for your sister to start treatment before her CD4 count falls any lower.
However, she will need careful monitoring over the next few weeks. This is because sometimes new infections appear when starting with a low CD4 count.
Modern treatment is very good. Even though your sister feels well, she has just been very lucky.
Hi my sister CD4 is 58 but she is healthy and does not show any symptoms of getting ill and it’s her first time being tested….How accurate are the test results?
Hi Moffat – it sounds like your brother is pretty sick. It is good that he is now being treated. The antibiotices are essential for the bacterial infection. Although the situation is complication there are chances that he could still recover. It sounds like he is already responding to HIV meds as his CD4 count has increased already and this should help his immune system become stonger. I hope this turn out okay for him.
Hi my young brother has CD4 count of 31 and on TB treatment, but Doctors say that he also has baterial meningitis. He is in a critical condition, they are also giving him a certain antibiotic. A week before his CD4 count was at 9. Any advice on his recovery? Thank you
Hi,
I’m sorry to hear about this difficulties you had when you started treatment. It is not unusual that if somebody is allergic to Septrin they will also have problems is Dapsone.
Your CD4 count response to treatment is really positive and it sounds like you are doing well overall. It’s important to keep going for regular monitoring and discuss any symptoms with your doctor. Please do let me know if you have any questions.
my 1st cd4 after I was diagnosed was 42, they put me on septrin which I turned out to be allergic to so they switched me to Dapsun. Unfortunately I had an extremely rare allergic reaction to this and started to suffer symptoms identical to He knew straight away that I had HIV but just sent a report to work that I had a immune system related condition and that I was receiving on going treatment. My viral load is now undetectable and my cd4 count over 260 the latter being a 6 month old figure. I’m suffering chronic fatigue but being as I only started treatment around this time last year the turn around has been amazing, unfortunately my weight gain has become a problem as i’m flat footed but we’re trying to slow down/ stop the gain maybe even start to reduce it.
Hi Andrew,
I’m sorry to hear how difficult things are for you. Can I ask where you are being treated?
If you are not taking ARVs there is a high risk of opportunistic infections with this low CD4 count. This doesn’t mean you definitely will get ill, just that it is much more likely than if you were on ARVs. Unfortunately the treatment for opportunistic infections is often more complicated and difficult to take than ARVs themselves.
It’s important to talk to your doctor about the difficulties you are having taking your meds. It may be possible to simplify your treatment regime to make this easier to take. It is important to be on treatment to try and control your HIV as it is very dangerous to be off treatment with this CD4 count and high viral load. Even if your CD4 count doesn’t get very high on treatment you will still be protected from getting ill, in comparison to not taking ARVs.