I've been hiv+ for 5 years and has been exposed to several therapies. Since June 2003 I stopped therapy that included a protease inhibitor because of its side effects. September my cd4 was 500 and viral load 25000. A month and a half back I decided to have a tonsillectomy since I suffered from tonsillitis often in the past. My new counts today are cd4 300, viral load 20000 but the cd4/cd8 ratio is only .25. from .35. Could this big drop still be the effect of the tonsillectomy with its anesthetics and could I wait a bit longer before deciding to go onto therapy?

Many thanx From South Africa

Thanks for your question.

It's certainly possible that the stress associated with your surgery could have adversely affected your labs-- for this reason I really try to avoid doing any HIV labs within at least a couple of weeks of any significant trauma, surgery, infection or vaccination.

I also try not to base the decision to start therapy on the basis of a single set of labs-- that means in your circumstance, that at the very least, I'd be repeating a set of CD4s before launching into treatment.

Thanks for reading, hope this helps. BY