Question
Trying to find out when I was infected…
27 May 2008. Related: All topics.
Is it possible to have had HIV for 7-10 years and have a CD4 570 and viral load of 13,000.
Or do these results does it mean I have only just caught HIV?
Answer
Either could be true – or any number of other possibilities.
One set of blood results doesn’t tell you much. Most importantly, it doesn’t tell you which direction the counts are going in, or how quickly anything is changing.
Usually you need 3-4 sets of results over a year before you can use the results to guess at when you might have been infected.
This will only ever be a guess though, and you will never know for sure. Sometimes if you remember seroconversion symptoms – a week or two of heavy flu – this can help with the possible time.
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