Doctor, i tesred positive in August 1997 and retested again several times in 2003, 2004 and 2005. In Sept 2005, i started falling sick and my doc recommended a cd4. The results revealed a cd4 of 99 and the doc decided i should take med immediately. I started on the med in Oct 2005 and it gave me a very bad reaction on the face. After 2 months of meds, the doc was sure it was the cause of the bad skin reaction and wanted to prove so, so he recommended i go off the med for two weeks and then retest again before changing to another regimen.

After 10 days of no drugs, i went for a cd4 test and surprisingly, the same has risen to 275.

What can i attribute the rise to especially since i had taken the med for two months and am off for two weeks? Incidentally, the rash is also slowly clearing.

Thanks for your post.

It seems very reasonable to me that the increase in your CD4 cell count is entirely due to the HIV medications. Given the amount of variability in CD4 levels, it would be nice (for academic purposes) to have at least a couple of values before starting to know where you were before meds; but either way, a ~150 cell increase after a couple of months can happen in patients.

Good luck with the new regimen.. BY