What is an HIV Symptom and
What You can Do To Overcome Your Fear

The most common HIV symptom is no symptom!

Women and men who become infected with HIV may have no symptoms for up to 10 years, but they can still transmit the infection to others.

Some people have a glandular fever-like illness (with fever, rash, joint pains and enlarged lymph nodes), which can occur at the time of seroconversion.

Seroconversion refers to the development of antibodies to HIV and usually takes place between 6 weeks and 3 months after an infection has occurred.

Also keep in mind that HIV is never diagnosed by the symptoms or a HIV symptom.

You may have the symptoms below, but not have HIV. Just know that these symptoms may be caused by something else.

To find out if you have HIV, you'll need to get a HIV test.

A simple and very convenient way to test for STD's is by a simple blood test. You can actually screen yourself for 5 additional STD's including:

Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, HIV, Hepatitis , Syphillis.

It takes minutes to do and you will get your results in 24 hrs. You can order your test through Health Direct who offer over 400 blood tests through a state certified blood lab - this service allows you to by pass the doctors office and deal directly with the a state certified blood lab.

If you find out you have HIV, there is no cure but there are ways to help keep you healthy.

It's important to remember that HIV is active inside your body, even when you don't have symptoms.

As the HIV infection spreads throughout your body, you'll start to feel sick.

For many people, the first HIV symptom they notice is large lymph nodes (swollen glands) that may be enlarged for more than 3 months.

A HIV symptom may include:

• Being very tired (fatigue)
  
  
• Quick weight loss
  
  
• Fevers
  
  
• Night sweats
  
  
• Headache
  
  
• Nausea
  
  
• Vomiting
  
  
• Diarrhea
  
  
• Sore muscles
  
  
• Mouth ulcers
  
  
• Sore throat
  
  
• Rash

A HIV symptom in women are more common, serious, and harder to treat:

• HIV symptom #1 - vaginal yeast infections
  
  
• HIV symptom #2- other vaginal infections such as bacterial vaginosis and STDs like gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis
  
  
• HIV symptom #3 - pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) or infection of a woman's reproductive organs
  
  
• HIV symptom #4 - menstrual cycle changes, like not having periods or having heavy and constant bleeding
  
  
• HIV symptom #5 - human papillomavirus (HPV) infections that cause genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer
  

As the immune system continues to weaken, other diseases and infections can develop that affect your eyes, digestive system, kidneys, lungs, skin, and brain

About HIV Infection

Acute HIV infection progresses over time to:

1. Asymptomatic HIV infection
   
   
2. Then to early symptomatic HIV infection
   
   
3. And later, to AIDS

which is identified on the basis of certain infections, grouped by the World Health Organization.

Most of these conditions are opportunistic infections that can be treated easily in healthy people.

Most individuals infected with HIV will progress to AIDS if not treated.

However, there is a tiny subset of patients who develop AIDS very slowly, or never at all.

These patients are called non-progressors.

• Stage 1 HIV disease is asymptomatic and not categorized as AIDS
  
  
• Stage II (includes minor mucocutaneous manifestations and recurrent upper respiratory tract infections)
  
  
• Stage III (includes unexplained chronic diarrhoea for longer than a month, severe bacterial infections and pulmonary tuberculosis) or
  
  
• Stage IV (includes Toxoplasmosis of the brain, Candidiasis of the oesophagus, trachea, bronchi or lungs and Kaposi's Sarcoma) these diseases are used as indicators of AIDS.
  

In 1993, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC expanded the definition of AIDS to include healthy HIV positive people with a CD4 positive T cell count of less than 200 per mm3 of blood.

The majority of new AIDS cases in the United States are reported on the basis of a low T cell count.

WHO recommends that HIV infected adolescents and adults with these infections and/or a T cell count of 200 per mm3 start antiretroviral therapy.

Remember, having a HIV symptom is not reason to believe you are infected with HIV - only a test can determine your true status.

And don't forget that even if a HIV symptom turns out to be a positive test, there are many successful treaments avaiable to stop the progression of the HIV.

HIV Symptom Resource link

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.