Question
What medications shall I take?
12 August 2008. Related: All topics, HIV testing.
I don’t know if I’m HIV-negative or positive. 4 years back I tested as negative. After that I’ve had some unsafe sex …somebody told me that the girl is positive. I don’t want to test now. If i know that I’m positive, no doubt it will make my brain dead. I want to live without test…and happy…if I’m positive, then I will die after around 10 or 12 years….although I didn’t undergo a test, I want to take medications as positive in order to live some more years. Is there any medication for me?
Answer
Now this is slightly ridiculous. Even if I can understand your fear to get tested as your result may come back positive, I cannot understand why would you want to take medications as if they are sweets. Believe me, they are not. HIV medications are prescribed for HIV-infection, the treatment is fairly complex, it is prescribed by a medical professional and it needs to be closely monitored. You cannot just go to the local shop and buy them as if you buy a pack of crisps.
In the majority of the countries HIV medications are received only from specialised pharmacies, as they are very expensive as well.
What I would suggest is to try to overcome your fear and get tested. There are several things to consider here:
1. Not every contact with a positive person necessarily leads to infection. Therefore even if you have been with somebody positive, this does not mean that you are already positive too. So, you may be negative at the moment and all your fears to be baseless
2. Even if you are positive, it is always better to know that as early as possible, as you will be able to receive better care, support and monitoring.
3. To add to that, the majority of the people need treatment usually 8-10 years after the infection, so you’ll not need to worry about it for a while.
4. You’ll be able to access treatment and care most probably free of charge (depending on where you live)
5. Finally, with the appropriate treatment and monitoring, nowadays the HIV-positive people have close to normal life-span. Which means that most probably many of them will die from old age, rather than the virus.
Hope all these points give you some fruit for thought.
All the best!