i am a 45 yr old female, have recently been diagnoses with hiv. my tcell count of 740, high viral load, symptoms for a year, swollen glands, diarhhea, weight loss believe i contracted this 3-4 years ago. are meds the answer and which ones

If you are having symptoms that are being caused by HIV I would start HIV medications now despite your high CD4 cell count. A very high viral load (>100,000) would further motivate initiating HIV treatment sooner rather than later.

Your symptoms could also be caused by other illnesses. So, it will be important for your clinician to make sure to investigate for another explanation besides HIV for the diarrhea and weight loss.

If it is determined that most likely HIV is the cause, there are several different combinations available. You should talk with your doctor about treatment options as individual factors can influence which drugs are best for you.

The combination of tenofovir+FTC (Truvada) + Sustiva is popular, simple to take and recommended in US guidelines as a preferred choice. Sustiva should not be used if you are planning to become pregnant. Others prefer either Truvada and Kaletra or Combivir and Kaletra (another preferred choice in the guidelines). Other options also exist so do talk this over with your doctor.

DW