when do you start treatment when you are HIV positive? and which type of treatment

Thanks for your questions.

This is a very lengthy subject and one that ultimately depends on a lot of very individual conditions.

There have been recently updated treatment guidelines (you can see these at: http://aidsinfo.nih.gov/guidelines/default_db2.asp?id=50) --one place to see a nice summary is at the AIDS Education and Treatment Center's webpage: http://www.aids-ed.org/aidsetc?page=cf-glines-01.

In short, current recommendations recommend starting HIV therapies if you have symptomatic disease, or if your CD4 count is below 350 or viral load greater than 55,000 copies.

There has been a significant change in the types of recommended treatments with regimens of either efavirenz (Sustiva) or lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra) with two nukes (like Combivir, tenofovir/3TC or stavudine/3TC)).

Bear in mind too, that a updated resistance testing guideline now recommends getting resistance tests for virtually all treatment naive persons-- this would help guide the kind of treatment that you might ultimately receive.

Hope this is a useful starting point. Good luck. BY