{"id":5620,"date":"2012-01-10T11:39:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T11:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/?p=5620"},"modified":"2012-01-10T11:39:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-10T11:39:49","slug":"does-late-diagnosis-means-my-lifespan-is-shorten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/5620","title":{"rendered":"Does late diagnosis means my lifespan is shorten?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">If you been diagnosed  late it does not means that your life span will necessarily be shorter. Even if you have a very low CD4 count \u2013 as low as 10 count, if  you follow your treatment very carefully, you have a good chance that the treatment will work. \u00a0You might already feel unwell and many people who  receive a late diagnosis are told that they have symptoms of an  opportunistic infection. Although this can be serious and can impact  your quality of life, you can work closely with your doctor to find the  best combination of medication for you to help your immune system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>HIV medication is very good and although your immune system could have  have been damaged, it can be possible to slow down the progress of the  virus if you take special care of your health. Following your medication  instructions is especially important if you\u2019re diagnosed late.<\/p>\n<p>Having a low CD4 count does not mean that you will become ill &#8211; it is  just that you are more susceptible to other opportunistic illnesses  (OIs). \u00a0It also means that you should start treatment straight away.  \u00a0Being on treatment will enable your immune system to recover because  the medication stop the virus from replicating. \u00a0Treatment will make  your viral load will go down and your CD4 count will rise again.<\/p>\n<p>Can I ask, are you on treatment at the moment? \u00a0If you are, can you  please tell me when you started your treatment and also the name of the  medication that has been prescribed to you? \u00a0Also can you please tell me  about your previous CD4 baseline and viral load results, previous to the  one youmentioned?<\/p>\n<p>Finally, are you receiving any support at the moment? \u00a0Getting support  from your local support group or a counsellor can help you to come to  terms living with HIV. Also you will be able to gain and share  experiences with others who are in the similar situation as you, rather  than having to deal with it in isolation.<\/p>\n<p>You can find more information on late diagnosis at this <a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/starting\/late-diagnosis\">link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of your recent replies stated &#8211; Treatment now are better than they have ever been. There is a real chance of a normalised lifespan for people who are diagnosed early and who have access to modern meds.<\/p>\n<p>Does this mean anyone diagnosed late with a low count and high viral load will definately have their their lifespan considerably reduced?<\/p>\n<p>I am worried now as my recent diagnosis was CD4 174 and viral load of over 240,000. My healthworker informed me that this virus had been around for a very very long time in my system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,26,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-cd4-and-viral-load","category-living-with-hiv-long-term","category-newly-diagnosed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}