There are many diseases and viruses that bring dread to someone at the mere mention of their name. High up on this list are HIV and AIDS. These sexually transmitted infections are some of the very worst potential words that a person can hear from a doctor.
Contracting HIV is a life changing event. Combining the treatment aspects of things with alterations to a person’s sex life can make for some big changes. Thankfully, contracting HIV is not the seeming death sentence that many people thought it was when it was first diagnosed in anyone.
What does HIV Do?
HIV is a virus. It’s a virus that attacks a person’s immune system. When people talk about deaths caused by HIV and AIDS, they aren’t actually caused by the diseases themselves. What HIV does is it attacks the immune system of a person. The immune system continues to become weaker until it finally it essentially stops functioning. At this point, HIV is classified as AIDS. AIDS allows for other diseases to suddenly become vicious killers. These diseases that are usually very small problems can suddenly be killers.
What’s the Difference Between HIV and AIDS?
Many people get confused by the difference between HIV and AIDS. Quite simply, HIV is the pathway to AIDS. AIDS is the final advanced stage of HIV. This obviously means that you can’t get AIDS without having HIV in your system.
AIDS is a syndrome rather than an actual disease. It’s the collection of symptoms that is caused by living with HIV for an extended period of time. They are very different, but often can be used interchangeably in common parlance.
Symptoms of HIV and AIDS
The symptoms of HIV are not particularly loud symptoms. They do their thing quietly while the disease goes about becoming stronger and damaging your body. Regular testing for HIV is often the best way to tell if it has been contracted.
That being said there are symptoms for some people. Many people will go through a primary infection phase. This phase typically feels like a bad case of the flu. People will be fevery, with headaches, sore throat and swollen lymph glands. Some people may also have rashes.
After that phase, there is what’s known as chronic HIV. During this stage, people will likely have a persistent lymph node swelling. Other than that, there’s very few symptoms and people who are unaware of their disease risk passing it.
Finally as HIV continues to advance, it will take some of those original flu like symptoms and add some terrible aspects like weight loss, thrush, shingles diarrhea and extreme fatigue to the mix.
Is There Treatment for HIV and AIDS?
Thankfully the treatments for HIV continue to improve. Where once it seemed like HIV would translate to death, many people are living long lives with it now. The key to treatment is early diagnosis of the virus. Once people are aware that they have it, they can begin treatment.
The downside to treatment is it’s not easy. It can require incredibly specific choices. Many people need to take pills at exact times during each day that will vary. There can also be some serious side effects like nausea , heart disease and some breakdown of muscle tissues. Treatments continue to be improved and hopefully one day a cure for the disease can be found.