Dr. Dave,

Hi. Without a doubt, there has been some conversation dealing with facial wasting against hiv. Dr. Dave, i too a young man, not on meds at all but physically active have suffered facial wasting in what i think you describe as the temple region. In fact, it has got so noticable I am letting my hair grow to try to minimize it. But hiding it is not a solution, we need to find out what mechanism is at work that exactly causes this.

I think Dr. Frascino highlights this point quite clearly "when he describes that any sort of facial wasting in hiv disease (whether on meds or not) is a delibitating condition that causes many positoids to stop and fail therapy, be unable to go on with their everyday life, and just plain lose faith. This condition obviously is one of the shortcomings and failings where we are still loosing with hiv disease. And we need to reverse this ASAP!

So far as you all mention, some cosmetic procedures have brought limited success. But many more need some more permanent solution without the use of cosmetics that will fix this. New research is still needed!

Daniel

Dear Daniel-

I am concerned that people are going to get the facial wasting accompanying advancing HIV infection confused with that seen with some HIV therapies.

In the case of viral mediated wasting syndrome (almost always seen as part of overall weight loss), the best treatment is actually HIV therapy. Most people taking HIV therapies gain weight. I would avoid d4T (Zerit) given it has the greatest association with facial fat loss.

As far as treatment associated fat loss, there definitely is a need for more research and any good ideas should be sent this way. At present, the only things shown to help this are switching from d4T to abacavir and cosmetic surgery/procedures.

DW