Question
How long can I live without HIV drugs?
2 January 2017. Related: All topics, Life expectancy, Living with HIV long-term.
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.
Hi Pam, if your niece got HIV at birth it very possible that both niece and mother are doing well. Many people with HIV live long and healthy lives because of ART – this is a treatment that can suppress HIV in the body and stop it having an effect on someones health. ART can even stop people from being able to transmit HIV.
My niece is 16yrs old at clinic she tested positive and said that she got it at birth but the mother is OK (HIV)
Hi Thando, no-one has discovered a cure for HIV yet. Any claim that a product can cure HIV is lying, whether this is natural or otherwise. There are very effective treatments for HIV though, called ART. ART lets people live long and productive lives, but if the meds are stopped, HIV will come back again.
Hi the I want to know if there is a natural permanent cure for HIV and does it really cure AIDS.
Hi Nonhle, thanks. Has your HIV test been confirmed by a second laboratory test? If not, then this should be the next important step. Otherwise, could you have become positive another way. For example, and I don’t know your age, but could you have been born with HIV?
Hi im tested positive my partner negetive and ive never had sex with anyone and we have sex whithout condom for past 5 months
Hi Mncedisi, can I ask why you have been refusing to take medication? Doing so is the best way to keep not only yourself healthy, but also the people around you. Have you had either of your children tested? While you are not on medication there is risk that you can pass on HIV to your children (more so your unborn child at the moment). Starting medication will also help prevent HIV affecting your own health and keep you healthy to raise your children.
Here I was told that I am hiv positive I refused to start treatment until now.it was 2014 my son is 9 years the other is 5years while I am having a newborn and they are growing well.Is the HIV still going to attack me or my son’s
Hi Parry, as you have tested negative 4 times post this exposure after the span of 8 years, you do not have HIV. You are HIV negative. You will only become positive if you have a high risk exposure in the future without protection (PrEP and/or condom) and this event leads to transmission.
Hi my name parry I had Done sex In 2014 after that I Have some Issues So I Tested after 1 year For hiv and That was negative then I did my test after 3 years that was also nagative and now I Just recently did Hiv antibody test That was Also negative I had symptoms That’s why I am worried because after the exposure The Bumps and Pimple was On my penis head and when I took medicine they gone can u please tell me 2014 to 2022 I had Done 4 test Till now Is there any Possibility of me Getting hiv in future.