interesting study from the UK<\/a> of people diagnosed with early or recent infection reported that the average time people took for their CD4 counts to start treatment (excluding those who started within the first 6 months) was about 5 years. However, 25% of people needed to start within 2 years of infection and another 25% hadn’t started after over 10 years.<\/p>\nThe two main point here are that i) people probably start treatment a few years earlier on average but that ii) there really is a wide range of individual responses.<\/p>\n
Luckily, even if you need treatment earlier, you are likely to get just a good response. The pace that HIV progresses has no relationship to your likelihood of getting a good response once you start.<\/p>\n
Based on the above study, the chance is exactly 50:50 that you will need (or not need) treatment in 5 years.
\nThe chance may be slightly higher now the guidelines for starting treatment are 350 rather than 200 copies\/mm3.<\/p>\n
If it is useful to talk about any of this, then please giv the phoneline a call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was recently diagnosed with HIV a few weeks ago after being told by an ex-partner that he had tested positive. I contracted HIV from him approximately 12 weeks ago, so I understand that I am still in primary infection phase.<\/p>\n
I recently obtained my blood test results showing a CD4 count of 522 and viral load of 55,000. Although these really just numbers for me, I guess I expected my results to be a bit better as I am only 23. I understand that treatment is recommended once CD4 count approaches 350, and I am worried about how soon I may need to start treatment, as the information I had read suggested that on average, treatment usually starts 8-9 years down the track.<\/p>\n
I guess I just would like to know where i fit in with regards to 'the norm'? I know that everybody is different, but are my results 'normal' or would one expect them to be a bit higher considering that I am quite young and in fairly good health?<\/p>\n
What are the chances that I will not require HIV meds in the next 5 years?<\/p>\n
On average, how long after infection do people require medication? Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,28,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-cd4-and-viral-load","category-newly-diagnosed","category-starting-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","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=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}