What is HIV/AIDS?
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus that can affect the body’s immune system and ultimately leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, in which the immune system is at its weakest as HIV infection progresses into the last stage. HIV attacks our CD4 cells, which is one of the types of T-cells regulating our body’s ability to fight off diseases. As a result, our whole immune system becomes ineffective. Because there is currently no cure for HIV and the human body cannot naturally get rid of HIV, we have to fight the disease for life. When untreated, we may not only get sick easily, but also experience serious consequences even from simple infections.

Signs and Symptoms of HIV:
Once you acquire the virus, you may experience very mild symptoms of a fever, sore throat, headache, muscle pain, and joint paint that lasts about 2 weeks.
Although there might be no problems in the beginning, you may experience infections and even rare kinds of cancer as the disease develops.
In the later stage, now categorized as AIDS, you may experience chills, fever, sweats, swollen lymph glands, weakness, weight loss, and CD4 cell count below 200 cells/mm.

How do I find out if I have HIV?
HIV is a sexually transmitted disease. We can also contract the virus by getting contact with infected blood or from mother-to-child during pregnancy, but not by touching someone’s unopened skin or breathing in the same room with a patient.
The only way to confirm is to get tested. The symptoms overlap with other diseases so nothing, except the test, can be a definitive indictment for HIV. You can test at your doctor’s office or yourself at home with the kits available at our pharmacy.

Medications:
Untreated patients with AIDS usually survive about 3 years. However, the advancements in the medicine allow those with HIV live nearly as long as those without HIV, and St. Jude is here to fight the disease with you.
Although most medications come in combination of medicines, they are generally called antiretroviral medicines. Below is the list of medications available to treat HIV, but we need to find the right one for you.

Combinations:
Atripla, Combivir, Complera, Epzicom, Evotaz, Genvoya, Kaletra, Odefsey, Prezcobix, Strilbild, Triumeq, Trizivir, Truvada

Additional links:
www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/whatishiv.html
www.avert.org/about-hiv-aids/what-hiv-aids
www.aidsinfo.nih.gov
www.hivanswers.com

References:
www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/whatishiv.html
www.aidsinfo.nih.gov/
www.uptodate.com