Hi I feel that I am at a crossroads with my treatment. First, let me say that I have gotten great care. I just happen to be one of the unlucky who has developed resistance to most everything I have taken. I was diagnoised in '93 with 170 tcells. I was started on azt and ddc and then on to other meds when the meds weren't satisfactory. Knowing what we know now, we never would have switched meds so often. I should point out that I am on e of those patients who never misses a dose, I work out and try to stay active.Even after moving from med to med my tcells stayed at around 300 an d my vl would be about 20K. Phoentype tests were run often to plan out the best salavage therapy. Latley my health and numbers have been declining. My cuhat rrent Dr is anxious to get my T-20 and also tipranavir. I did see a specialistat UCSD that would like me to wait and enroll in a new study for a integrase inhibitor -as well as the T20 and tipranavir. My only problem with this is that I contimue to slip and worry I might not be around for this great treatment. The trial is supposed to start in 4-8 weeks. By the way, my current cd4's are 60 and my vl is 180k.What is your opinion. thanks

If your nutrition is good and you are on maximal prevention of opportunistic infections then waiting several months for access to new drugs as outlined by the HIV specialists you have seen seems to be a good choice. Combining 2 or 3 active drugs with 1-2 from new classes is usually the best way to achieve high level suppression with usually will result in longer term success. KH