My daughter has been on Combivir/Sustiva for about 2 months. Her viral load went from 75,000 to 117, which is great, but her T-cells were 225 and went down to 197. Now she seems to have fevers and brusing easily. Will her T-cells begin to go up now that the viral load is so far down ? Also, with the t-cell count under 200, is she now considered to have AIDS ?

It is good that your daughter's viral load has gone down. It is possible that there are other regimens that may not suppress her bone marrow (the AZT in Combivir has a possible side effect of sometimes decreasing the blood cell counts). A switch example is Ziagen (abacavir) which has actually been associated with a greater increase in T-cells than AZT. You mentioned your daughter is also HepC+. It may be important for that also to be looked at as a cause for her bruising, etc. Hopefully her t-cells will respond if her viral load remains very low or nondetectable.

The definition of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) includes a t-cell at or below 200 absolute count. Therefore your daughter does have the diagnosis of AIDS.

Be well.