Question

Newly diagnosed in Ireland

29 May 2007. Related: All topics, CD4 and viral load, Newly diagnosed, Starting treatment.

Hi

I am 25 years old and 2 weeks ago I was diagnosed HIV+, which came as a total shock. My boyfriend is positive too and his results came back last Friday.

My last test was in May 2006 and it was negative. I am just wondering if my seroconversion was in October 2006. I had all the symptoms including a flu, temperature, sweats, aches, and couldn’t eat.

When should I start treatment? My doctor is sending me to see an HIV specialist after my confirmation result comes back. And from reading I’ve found out that my life expectancy could be from 10 -25 years.

I am scared in case I am a fast progressor, and because I don’t think there is much support in the west of Ireland for HIV+ people.

Answer

Answer: Simon Collins

Hi there

If you were not expecting this result, then it is going to take a while for you to come to terms with being HIV-positive. Over this time, getting support and learning about your options is a good start – and it is good that you are doing this already.

Although you can never know exactly how long you have been HIV-positive, it sounds very possible that you did have seroconversion symptoms back in October, and were therefore likely to have been infected a few weeks earlier.

Apart from those symptoms though, you have probably not noticed any other effects from being HIV-positive over the last 6 months or so. This is because your immune system usually makes a pretty good job of controlling HIV – usually for many years. On average this can be 5-8 years, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.

Whether you are a slow, average or fast progressor though makes no difference to your chance of getting a good response from treatment. Even if your CD4 count (the blood test used as a marker for monitoring how your immune system is affected by HIV) is low and you start treatment in the next year or two, you would still expect the drugs to work well and keep to healthy and alive for many years.

Your information on life expectancy is not fixed either. Treatment has only been around for the last 10 years or so, and some research shows that people who started back then and have had an undetectable viral load since then, have stopped the virus from developing or mutating. Treatment with a viral load less than 50 copies/mL essentially stop HIV in it’s tracks.

So the 10 -25 years is likely to be an under-estimate for someone in your situation. These results are an average from studies looking at people in all sorts of situations, including many that started treatment with very low CD4 counts, or who have developed resistance, or who are not taking their meds properly.

If you monitor your health carefully (see questions on this site about CD4 and viral load tests), and start treatment before your CD4 count drops below around 250, and are adherent when you do start treatment etc, then most doctors would tell you to expect to lead a long normal life. For someone who is 25 years old and is newly diagnosed today, this will be longer than 10-25 years.

For example, a study from Denmark published in the British Medical Journal in January suggested that a 25 year old diagnosed today can now expect to survive for an average 39 years. This is likely to improve with new drugs and longer study follow-up.

Getting in touch with other HIV-positive people may give you important support rather than you and your boyfriend dealing with this in isolation.

A list of support groups in Ireland is included here.

It is important that you see an HIV specialist. You should get a set of CD4 and viral load tests, and then that these are repeated in the next month, and probably every three months after that. This is to see any trend. You should also ask for a resistance test to see whether you were infected with a virus that is already resistant to any of the drugs.

If it is useful to contact us after these results, please let us know.