I have read somewhere that the medicine we take actually can kill us faster than the disease and that what we eat, stress level we have in our lives can kill us too and if we dont take the medicine and learn to eat right and lower our stress medicine then we will survive longer. is this true. i am so confused. i dont want to die a young mom. please help me.

It is a myth that HIV drugs would kill patients before AIDS would. HIV drugs do not cure HIV but increasingly are better tolerated and more effective. AIDS is a terrible disease. Before effective HIV drugs were available the average AIDS patient I cared for developed 4-5 AIDS defining conditions that resulted in horrible suffering and ultimately death. Effective HIV therapy changed all of that. There is increasing evidence that effective HIV treatment, particularly when started before severe immune damage occurs, can potentially allow patients to live for decades and possibly for near normal life spans under the best circumstances. HIV drugs are associated with side effects that frustrate patients and doctors alike but they pale in comparison to what happens in untreated AIDS. KH