Hello,

I was diagnosed in June 08 with a CD4 of 458, CD4% of 19% and a VL of 43,638. Over ten months, my CD4 fluctuated but my CD4% declined to 13% and my VL rose to 156,000. I also started to feel the effects of HIV in many ways. I was reluctant to start treatment like most and started Sustiva & Truvada; after nearly 4 weeks my VL fell to 740 and at my last full counts 3 months on showed my CD4 had risen to 536, my CD4% to 20% and my VL down to 74. I still find it hard to let go of the nagging feeling that all this is going to stop and maybe I am becoming a 'worried-well' I've just had swine flu and fought it off and due to give blood in 2 weeks time.

Should I be confident that my treatment is working and I can relax and enjoy life again?

Many thanks for your advice and by the way, starting treatment was the best thing ever- you don't realise just what you accept as normal until you realise with improvement that it was anything but normal.

Hello and thanks for your post.

Sounds like things are going very well (even survived the H1N1 influenza). In my opinion, as long as you can find the way to be adherent, I'd see no reason why your medications should stop working.

I'll continue to hope to see better (yet) medications and strategies; but until then, your current regimen is certainly a state-of-the-art one.

So, yes, I'd be confident that you can relax and live life very abundantly.

BY