{"id":6963,"date":"2012-06-01T10:30:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T10:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/?p=6963"},"modified":"2012-06-01T10:30:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-01T10:30:15","slug":"my-cd4-is-501-but-im-worried-that-im-who-stage-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/6963","title":{"rendered":"My CD4 is 501 but I&#039;m worried that I&#039;m WHO &#039;stage 2&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m sorry to hear that the WHO clinical staging has caused you more stress. These guidelines have been designed for settings where people don\u2019t have access to regular CD4 testing. This is to help medics in poor countries get an idea of the immune status of their patients when these tests aren\u2019t available. The WHO staging guidelines still say though that CD4 counts are more useful measures of the immune system. The WHO recommendation is to start treatment when the CD4 is less than 350.<\/p>\n<p>The WHO data that you\u2019ve sent me looks like it\u2019s come from the Wikipedia page. Although Wikipedia is great for a quick outline of information it doesn\u2019t give you the whole story. If you take a look at the WHO staging system these are the full stage 2 clinical symptoms:<\/p>\n<p>Clinical stage 2<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Moderate unexplained weigh loss (&lt;10% of presumed or measured body weight)<\/li>\n<li>Recurrent respiratory tract infections (sinusitis, tonsillitis, otitis media and pharyngitis)<\/li>\n<li>Herpes zoster<\/li>\n<li>Angular cheilitis<\/li>\n<li>Recurrent oral ulceration<\/li>\n<li>Papular pruritic eruptions<\/li>\n<li>Seborrhoeic dermatitis<\/li>\n<li>Fungal nail infections<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can get the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/hiv\/pub\/vct\/hivstaging\/en\/index.html\">WHO guidelines from their website <\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s really understandable that you\u2019re worried but your CD4 count is still very strong. This means your immune system is still strong. The symptoms you are experiencing are very unlikely to be related to your HIV. If you\u2019re worried you can talk to your doctor about these.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this helps put your mind at ease. Please do let me know if you have any further questions or need help with anything else!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thank you for this site, it is very helpful.<\/p>\n<p>I have previously read that having HIV is not in itself a cause of having more recurrent or lasting common diseases like a cold or the flu.<br \/>\nHowever, the WHO HIV disease staging states the following:<\/p>\n<p>Stage I: HIV disease is asymptomatic and not categorized as AIDS.<\/p>\n<p>Stage II: include minor mucocutaneous manifestations and recurrent upper respiratory tract infections.<\/p>\n<p>Stage III: includes unexplained chronic diarrhea for longer than a month, severe bacterial infections and pulmonary tuberculosis.<\/p>\n<p>Stage IV: includes toxoplasmosis of the brain, candidiasis of the esophagus, trachea, bronchi or lungs and Kaposi&#39;s sarcoma; these diseases are used as indicators of AIDS.<\/p>\n<p>I ask this because I have been having recurrent mild symptoms related to my upper respiratory tract, such as blocked nose and ears and sore throat for a couple of months now, and they come and go. I am afraid I am indeed progressing into &#8216;Stage 2&#8217;. I was diagnosed 6 months ago and I understand it is common to feel paranoid, but I just felt very scared when I saw this &#8216;staging list&#8217;. I am not currently in treatment.<\/p>\n<p>My data is the following:<br \/>\n6 months ago: CD4 689, CD% 26, VL 1000<br \/>\n3 months ago: CD4 501, CD% 24, VL 3000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6963","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\/6963","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=6963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}