Hello,<\/p>\n
Thank-you for your question.<\/p>\n
The response a person has to HIV is very individual, and different people will see different results. The first aim of treatment is to achieve an undetectable viral load. The second is to increase CD4, particularly to above 200 to prevent opportunistic infections. Of course everybody would love to see their CD4 count return to pre-infection levels, but this doesn\u2019t always happen. In truth we don\u2019t know for certain why this is but I will do my best to explain some of the most likely explanations.<\/p>\n
Try picturing your immune system as being similar to a computer keyboard. Each of the letters and numbers on the keyboard represents a different immune response. When you have all of the letters your immune system is strong and you can fight off all kinds of infections. When HIV enters the system it attacks the different parts of the immune system. You might lose a few of the keys on the keyboard, making you vulnerable to different infections.<\/p>\n
The immune system is clever though. Imagine trying to write the word HELLO if you\u2019ve lost your \u2018L\u2019. You could write HE11O. It\u2019s not quite the same but it still gets the job done.<\/p>\n
So although your immune system may lose certain responses it can often make up for this in other ways. While certain parts are permanently lost- and CD4 counts are not fully rebuilt- this doesn\u2019t meant the immune system couldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
Some people are luckier than others and remain healthy even when their CD4 is quite low. This could be because they still have enough of the most important immune cells to combat key infections. Others might get ill at higher CD4 counts because they\u2019ve lost some of the more useful immune cells. Like everything in HIV this is very individual and difficult to predict.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s a good idea to keep an eye on your CD4 count it\u2019s important not to get too hung up on numbers. If your viral load remains undetectable this means you will be able to keep taking your treatment. So long as you feel well and you are happy with your treatment that\u2019s the main thing.<\/p>\n
For more information about CD4 counts and other information around HIV treatment take a look at our \u2018Introduction to Combination Therapy\u2019 guide. You can view it online or download it from this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n Please let us know if we can help further, or again in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why cant a HIV+ person’s CD4 levels get back up to the same levels that existed before infection when reaching undetectable on antiretrovirals?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}