Hello and thank you for such an insightful forum.

I have decided to stop taking all meds for my HIV due to the serious side effects that I seem to have with most of them. I seem to do better off the meds. My doctor and friends are trying to get me to start up again but I am reluctant at this point.

My question is that while I am still relatively healthy; last cd4 was 613, viral load 85,000; what is your best guess on average life expectancy of one who decides no more meds and has my figures?

Any insight you can provide would be grateful. Thanks.

As you can imagine - there is no good answer to your question - as it depends. It depends entirely on what you do as you monitor the impact of those 85 thousand viruses per drop of blood, and how fast they do what they do which is to chomp up the t cells. It may take months to years, but in general if untreated the t cells will drop. And in the bad old days when we had little we could do about it, once the t4 count hit 200 - there was a life expectancy of just a few years. But then we learned how to stop HIV - and regrow t cells. So that at some future point, perhaps after we acquire enough new meds so that you'll find some effective combo on which you also feel well - you'll be able to stop the damage done by uncontrolled HIV and prolong your life expectancy. So stay in touch regularly - we are all busy working to create new options - there are another half dozen meds in active development any one of which might do better for you than whatever you took already...

So - for how long can someone live? Well, no one can say of course - since we are only at this for less than 20 years. And we only have a few years experience with the current meds, and even less time since we learned some of the essential rules of the treatment game. But we have reasons to believe that at least for some, in whom the meds are well tolerated, and do their best to truly stop HIV - it is not unreasonable to think that HIV may be rendered unimportant in determining someone's life span. Meaning that while HIV may be there- it may have little impact in creating illness. So that other issues will determine life span.

Hope that helps. CC