My situation

It seems that I am on the edge of needing to take the HIV antiviral medication - but do not have to take it yet if I do not want to.

They realise I do not want to take them until I have Barry stabilised and in view of my test results can hold off for a while until he has started to take them and hopefully is feeling better.

My results were that I have a very low virus load - I think - considering I have been infected almost as long as Barry ( amount of HIV virus in my blood) his are 55,000+ mine are only 264, which means that for now my immune system is coping with the virus .

But there are signs that this will not be for much longer
As my Tcell/CD4 count is only 289 - which is loads better than Barry's as his is only 9!!

Normal CD4 counts in adults range from 500 to 1,500 cells per cubic millimeter of blood.

But the level that they consider you to have AIDs is 200 and the level that they usually feel you need to start antiretrovirals is in the UK between 350 and 250 - I am only on the lower edge of this!!

My T cell/CD4 count has to be juggled with my virus load so as my virus count is pretty low for untreated HIV and my CD4 count is not critical and I am not ill like Barry, I do not have to start HIV therapy right now if I do not want to - which I don't

But it is only a matter of a short time.

It has been a very 'sobering' day - in more ways than one as there were other results of the comprehensive tests they do when you have HIV that for me were not good. In some ways some of my test results were worse that Barry's !!

I will write about when I can and when I feel able . This may be later or it may be in a few days - not sure as yet.