Hello, I'm a white female age 59 with HIV since May 2008. I'm not on meds yet and get bloods done every three months. For the last eight bloolds my CD4 has been readings have been 608, 727, 972, 828, 807, 574, 633, 720 and concurrently my CD4 percentage has been 36.8%, 34.4% 33.0%, 30.5%, 27.2%, 22.9% 22.0%, 19.0% hence my latest readings were CD4 720 and CD4% 19.0%. My last viral load testresult was 70,629. an you explain why my CD4 is relatively high but my CD4 percentage is moving down consistently also because of this when should I start treatment. Thank you.

My suggestion is to start HIV treatment now. The almost 50% reduction in CD4% indicates that HIV has already caused significant damage, regardless of the current CD4 count. It is just a matter of time before the CD4 count will begin to decrease significantly. This is correlated with the viral load of 70,000, while although in the moderate range, is high enough to be causing CD4 count loss.