Brain lesions identified by MRI can be related to a wide range of complications. This includes toxoplasmosis, central nervous system lymphoma, PML, HIV encephalopathy, TB, VZV (varicella virus – the virus that causes chicken pox and shingles), CMV, syphilis and others.<\/p>\n
The lesions look different for different diseases. Although definite diagnosis can sometimes be difficult, an expert can usually distinguish the differences.<\/p>\n
It is important that you see an expert as treatments are different depending on the cause,<\/p>\n
Using drugs in your ARV combination that definitely penetrate the brain may also help. So perhaps changing 3TC to abacavir could strengthen this aspect of your regimen, or using a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor. See CNS penetration of ARV drugs is associated with lower CSF viral load<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are various online overviews that may also help with information, including:<\/p>\n Six months ago I woke up with a numbness across my upper lip and side of my face corresponding with my right hand (same symptoms) and left leg going into the foot affecting my balance. I had an MRI scan indicating 2 lesions on the right side of my brain, in grey matter plus 3 on my left side.<\/p>\n The doctors thought it might be PML but I had a lumber punch and the JC virus was not found in the spinal fluid. My doctor changed my ARV’s to Combivir 300\/150 and Virammune 200mg. Both tables twice a day. Presently there has been no there deterioration and no improvement.<\/p>\n Is there anything any treatment available for these symptoms? or does one have to learn to live with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,29,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-opportunistic-infections","category-other-tests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"