Apart from taking HIV medications, what's your most important piece of advice?
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Apart from taking HIV medications, what's the most important piece of advice you have for people living with HIV on staying healthy?
Taking regular medications for someone living with HIV is really important to reduce the viral load in blood. But apart from medication, what is your advice? -
Along with taking medications as directed, it is important to SEE YOUR DOCTOR REGULARLY with testing to ensure the virus is well suppressed. Additionally don't take any new meds, over-the-counter meds, or herbal/health/exercise supplements without checking with your doctor because there can be dangerous interactions (I am looking at you Cobicistat).
If you do all of the HIV-suppression related things correctly and keep the virus suppressed…excellent... now you need to LIVE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE because you will probably be around for quite a while.
Ergo:- EAT A HEALTHY WELL-BALANCED DIET,
- GET 8 HOURS OF SLEEP NIGHTLY, and
- EXERCISE >200 minutes every week.
[QUIT SMOKING IF YOU SMOKE!!! & see a therapist if you need support]
A healthy lifestyle improves overall health which helps the body make more CD4 and CD8 cells to help fight the virus, which in-turn makes comorbidities (heart disease, chronic kidney disease, obesity/diabetes, etc.) way less likely, and if you do end up in the ICU for some reason - the healthier you are at baseline, the better your chance of walking out of the hospital.
Healthy lifestyle sounds basic…but without basic advanced won't be very effective.
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Taking regular medications for someone living with HIV is really important to reduce the viral load in blood. But apart from medication, what is your advice?
General advice that is even more important for someone with HIV:
Stop drinking alcohol completely. Alcohol is poison and can interact with medications.
Be proactive in managing your own health care. Know your meds, labs, etc. No one will care as much about your health as you do.
Tell your doctor about any recreational drug use, even if it's alcohol or marijuana. If you are worried about how your doctor might react, then that will be one less thing to worry about.
Practice safer sex and in particular, use condoms. You don't want to give someone else HIV. You don't want to get chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital warts, syphilis, hepatitis, etc. on top of the HIV. You don't want to get another strain of HIV, either.
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In English:
Ideal that you know your medicine, make your doctor's appointments regularly, exams as requested, control of Cd4.
With medication, it is not forbidden to drink alcoholic beverages but moderation always, nothing exaggerated. Alcohol does not stop the effect, but it attacks the liver which can cause problems for a person with the HIV virus.
Always take care of your health, avoid smoking and even if taking medication, use condoms.In Portuguese:
Ideal que conheça seu medicamento, faça regularmente suas consultas médicas, exames conforme solicitado, controle do Cd4.
Com a medicação não é proibido ingerir bebida alcoólica porém moderação sempre, nada de exagero. O álcool não corta o efeito, mas ataca o fígado o que pode gerar problemas a um portador do Vírus HIV.
Cuide de sua saúde sempre, evite fumar e mesmo se medicando, use preservativos. -
@dhougie
Important advice is to hang in there and not get obsessed.
There are times when taking your meds seems to be life limiting in itself so don't ignore that feeling. Discuss it with your Drs. Your mental health and stress levels are really important to your long term physical health.
Exercise to keep your body healthy is very important but you must keep it gentle, don't become a body builder or marathon runner (Sprint Triathlon at the max). Rowing is the best all round exercise - it gives a full body workout but doesn't overly stress any one part of your body.What do I know? 26 years (during most of which everyone regarded me as dying) of living with AIDS, a low CD4 count - c100 and never been above 120.
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Above all, do whatever you can to keep your mental health as good as possible! If you can't get into the right headspace to manage your condition then you're going to end up in a downward spiral.
Even as a child I was never good when it came to taking pills, so having to take daily medication is a real struggle. There have been times when I've stopped my meds for various reason, be that just hating the pills, depression, hating the fact the I need the pills at all, or just forgetfulness. Sometimes this has lasted for several months, and I ignored contact attempts from my healthcare worker. My last break lasted around a year.
Finally got off my ass and got in touch with them again, and my CD had crashed to 96. They've moved me onto a single daily pill as opposed to 3 different ones, and I've done everything I can to be a good boy. In the last 2 months I've only missed a single dose, and that's because I just forgot one night. Overall, my numbers are climbing nicely now.
Taste the rainbow! Eat crayons!
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@frostycab
YES - taking daily meds can be tougher than many think. You know you are going to have to take them for the rest of your life and, especially if you otherwise young and healthy, this can be a depressing reality that can just add to other realities in your life at the wrong point. You just have to hang in there and (if like me and most others) you stop taking your meds then, don't be afraid/ashamed to admit this to your Drs.
My consultant has told me that he and his staff have been trained not to be judgmental. It is recognised that taking meds long term can be harder than many like to think but that the most difficult thing can be that if you get off this particular wagon is getting back on. So they won't be judgmental rather they will be relieved/happy to help you get back on.
There are no magic cures. Sot the other thing you must do is surprisingly simple - and very hard to actually do - which is get on with your life. Being positive is truly the only way yo have of moving forward. Being honest to yourself and who you really are is difficult but also a crucial part of this.
PM - if you want to. -
Genuine question.
Viruses tend to evolve over time to be more benign - as we've seen with another retrovirus (RNA virus), covid.
Surely HIV has done it a little? surely it's less malign by now, than it was in the 80s and 90s when killing everyone?
If that's true: Why wouldn't people monitor viral & T or CD4 levels, dial up meds whenever they start to go wrong, but dial back (giving the body & the person a break) if they clearly go the right way?
The only good answer I can think of is, "Because that's too complicated for real life."
If there are other good answers, like "It was tried & does harm for reason XYZ", please inform me.
One BAD answer might be, "Because lifetime, full daily meds are better for Big Pharma."
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@blablarg18
Its complicated - of course. HIV virus constantly mutates and for this reason in certain parts of the world particular strains have developed.
Also the virus constantly mutates in your body but does so less when there is less of it in your body and it is hiding away in those places in your body where your immune system and meds find it hard to reach. So it is important to take your meds to keep the virus at the lowest level.
If you don't take your meds the virus will quickly multiply and will do so exponentially. In the early stages when you aren't taking meds it will replicate slowly and at a certain will suddenly take off. If you were constantly checking your body for the amount of virus before taking meds again you would have to do so daily - impractical at any level. If you miss the take-off point the amount of the virus in your body will soar before your meds have time to get it back to safe levels again.
As you should be aware, your Clinic Dr will do a DNA test on the virus in your body when you are first detected and before changing your meds to ensure that the prescribed meds are effective against the evolved virus in your body.
There is little evidence that the virus as it has evolved has got any less dangerous. Remember also it is not the virus that kills you. What kills you is the opportunistic infections caused from a deficient immune system. Your immune system takes a long time to recover from the effects of HIV infection much much longer than it takes for meds to deplete the amount of HIV virus in your system. Once depleted your immune system may fully recover but it may never fully recover and in some hardly ever recovers. -
Viruses tend to evolve over time to be more benign - as we've seen with another retrovirus (RNA virus), covid.
A pathogen's ability to cause a disease is NOT related to the symptoms it produces. What tends to happen with airbone infections is that weaker strains (with weaker symptoms) are more likely to spread successfuly because they don't affect people's routine. Stronger strains are more likely to make people too ill to actually go out and infect others. Having weaker symptoms is a key to keep the virus circulating, this does not always mean it is more or less harmful.
Take HIV as an example, it basically has no symptom at all. You can live a whole decade completely unaware before getting ill from what HIV has done to your immune system in the past years. HIV is a model of efficiency and there is no evolutional basis for it to become less dangerous or to develop symptoms.
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Surely HIV has done it a little? surely it's less malign by now, than it was in the 80s and 90s when killing everyone?
This has nothing to do with the virus itself but rather with the drugs used to treat it. There always were reasons to finance new drugs, but prejudice had a big impact on this, both politically and culturally. It took a lot of time for effective drugs to be developed. The first ones did the job but also had enormous side effects so there were lots of people who just prefered to not take them as they'd feel less sick not taking anything...
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If that's true: Why wouldn't people monitor viral & T or CD4 levels, dial up meds whenever they start to go wrong, but dial back (giving the body & the person a break) if they clearly go the right way?
This question I don't fully understand... If you're referring to drugs that are administrated on a six-monthy basis, for instance, there are lots of factors that impose a burden, like it being too expensive or requiring drug levels that could be harmful to our bodies. It being a possibility or not is up to technological advancement and finnancial investment of course. Currently there are trials taking place for PrEP drugs that are administered on a monthly basis or three-monthly basis.
