Hi<\/p>\n
Both CD4 counts and viral load results can fluctuate on a daily basis without it meaning that your immune system or amount of virus has changed in any significant way.<\/p>\n
At higher levels (above 350) CD4 counts can easily change by 50-100 without it meaning anything. Only if this happens at each visit and there is a clear trend, would the results be interpreted as showing a real change.<\/p>\n
With viral load results there can be even broader ranges because of the limitations of the tests. A viral load result can be three-fold higher or lower and still considered the same result.<\/p>\n
Your CD4 counts don’t show any clear trend to be dropping. The average fall off treatment is only around 50 cells a year.<\/p>\n
Your viral load results would all be interpreted by your doctor as the same result – apart from the undetectable result, which was probably a lab error.<\/p>\n
None of your results suggest that there is any urgency to starting treatment, if you are otherwise healthy, and this is not what you want to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi, I was diagnosed last August 2007. Since then my CD4 count was on the rise and my viral load on the decline:
\nAugust 2007 – CD4 354 VL 7,500
\nNovember 2007 – CD4 410 VL 6,180
\nJanuary 2008 – CD4 540 VL only 48 (which was considered undetectable).
\nI was very happy about this results.<\/p>\n
However todays results came back as CD4 438 and VL 11,470 and its really concerned me why the VL went up.<\/p>\n
My CD4% has been kind of steady 29.3% back in August 2007 to 27% on the last result.<\/p>\n
I am afraid that i might be getting sick or will need to start medication soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-cd4-and-viral-load"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","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=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}