{"id":6284,"date":"2012-03-09T13:05:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T13:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/?p=6284"},"modified":"2012-03-09T13:05:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T13:05:12","slug":"im-not-on-treatment-yet-and-how-come-my-cd4-count-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/6284","title":{"rendered":"How can my CD4 count increase and I am not on treatment?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can understand that you are puzzled by the slight increase in your CD4 count, even though you have not started your treatment.<\/p>\n<p>It is normal for CD4 counts to fluctuate.\u00a0 The fluctuation could be a result of many things such as the time of the day, exercise, how tired or stress you are and whether you have other infections like a cold or the flu.<\/p>\n<p>The only way for you to increase your CD4 count is by starting treatment.\u00a0 There are no other products such as vitamins, supplement or herbal remedies, which can help to increase your CD4 count.<\/p>\n<p>HIV medication works by stopping the virus from replicating itself.\u00a0 Once the viral load has been reduced (to less than 50 copies), then your CD4 count will start to rise again, but not normally to the level before infection.<\/p>\n<p>Staying healthy by eating a nutritious balanced diet, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking can help to reduce stress levels. All of these can help to maintain a healthy immune system. This will not necessarily increase your CD4 count but it can help to maintain it.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few factors that you need to know before starting treatment.\u00a0 I include a link for you on starting treatment:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/starting\">https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/starting<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Please take your time reading it and you have any further queries, do write back to me.<\/p>\n<p>Can I ask, whether you are receiving prenatal treatment at the moment?\u00a0 If you do not have any, perhaps you can try contacting your local hospital for assistance.<\/p>\n<p>It is important for the members of the health care team to have specialist experience with HIV positive women.\u00a0 They can give you the extra support throughout your pregnancy.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on HIV and pregnancy, please follow this <a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/pregnancy\">link to our guide to HIV pregnancy and women&#8217;s health<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just found out that I\u2019m HIV positive during my pregnancy but my husband is negative.  The first time I took test for my CD4 count they were 671 after a week I took the other one they came back 697 and mind you at that time I was not on a medication up until now as I\u2019m waiting for the medical aid to send me the medication in the next coming 3 days. I just need a clarity on that how possible is that my cd4 count to increase if I&#8217;m not on medication. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-cd4-and-viral-load","category-starting-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284","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=6284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}