Monday, January 16, 2023

How Long Do People Live With Hiv

Can Hiv Be Prevented

How long can you live with HIV without knowing | hiv/aids

To reduce the risk of getting HIV, people who are sexually active should:

  • use a condom every time they have sex
  • get tested for HIV and make sure all partners do too
  • reduce their number of sexual partners
  • get tested and treated for STDs having an STD increases the risk of HIV infection
  • consider taking a medicine every day if they are at very high risk of getting infected

For everyone:

  • Do not inject drugs or share any kind of needle.
  • Do not share razors or other personal objects that may touch blood.
  • Do not touch anyone else’s blood from a cut or sore.

How Long Does A Person With Hiv Live

With early diagnosis and proper treatment, people with HIV can live a healthy and long life. There is no generalized definitive period for which a person with HIV can live. In the case of untreated HIV infection, the overall mortality rate is more than 90%. The average time from infection to death is 8 to 10 years. This may, however, vary from person to person. Many factors that affect survival include:

  • Genes
  • Age
  • Treatment

In the early days, the life expectancy and quality of life were drastically reduced in people with HIV. They would progress to AIDS within 10 years after which they would hardly live for more than two years.

With the advances in diagnosis and treatment, people with HIV infection can be diagnosed and put on an excellent treatment regimen before their immunity declines significantly. They are thus also protected from various opportunistic infections and cancers. Moreover, there are good tests available to monitor how well the infection is controlled. This enables timely change in treatment if one treatment regimen does not work well for a person. With the increasing use of ART and the introduction of better antiviral regimens, survival with HIV infection has increased over time. The survival, however, is generally not yet equivalent to that in uninfected individuals.

Calculating Life Expectancy With Hiv Or Aids

Recent research shows that a young person with HIV or AIDS could potentially live almost as long as anyone else in the general population. But this is only the case if they have routine access to health care and respond well to modern antiretroviral treatments . So a 20-year-old who starts on ARTs today, for example, might eventually live to be 67.

Keep in mind though, since there is no known cure, HIV life expectancy varies greatly from one individual to the next based on many things. This includes early detection plus, gender and lifestyle choices such as alcohol, tobacco, or drug use.

Over the past two decades, HIV life expectancy has drastically risen. What was once considered a terminal illness is now a medically manageable condition at any age. Those who abuse intravenous drugs or possess a preexisting immune disorder, however, do not fare as well.

In light of huge disparities in access to health care and ARTs, the CDC regularly publishes reports on obstacles to HIV and AIDS treatment. By 2016, it was estimated that 1.1 million people in the U.S., aged 13 or older, had HIV .

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Impact On Communities Of Color

  • Racial and ethnic minorities have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic, and represent the majority of new HIV diagnoses, people living with HIV disease, and deaths among people with HIV.37,38
  • Black and Latino people account for a disproportionate share of new HIV diagnoses, relative to their size in the U.S. population .39,40 Black people also account for more people living with HIV than any other racial group â an estimated 479,300 of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the U.S. are black.41
  • Black people also have the highest rate of new HIV diagnoses, followed by Latino people â in 2019, the rate of new HIV diagnoses per 100,000 for Black people was about 8 times that of white people Latino people had a rate 4 times that of white people.42
  • Black people accounted for close to half of deaths among people with an HIV diagnosis in 2019.43,44
  • Survival after an AIDS diagnosis is lower for Black people than for most other racial/ethnic groups, and Black people have had the highest age-adjusted death rate due to HIV disease throughout most of the epidemic.45 HIV ranks higher as a cause of death for Black and Latino people, compared with White people.46 Further, HIV was the 6th leading cause of death for Black people ages 25-34 in 2019.47

What Do I Do If I Find Out I Have Hiv

Brace Yourself For The Universal " Symptoms"  Of People ...

Millions of people have HIV youre definitely not alone. Most people get at least one STD in their lifetime, and having HIV or another STD is nothing to feel ashamed of or embarrassed about. It doesnt mean youre dirty or a bad person.

Finding out that you have HIV can be really upsetting. You might feel mad, embarrassed, scared, or ashamed at first. But youll probably feel better as time goes by having a good support system and getting counseling really helps. There are medicines you can take to help you stay healthy, and lots of ways to avoid giving HIV to anyone you have sex with. The reality is, people with HIV can be in relationships, have sex, and live normal lives by taking a few precautions.

Although theres no cure for HIV, there are medicines that help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. HIV treatment called antiretroviral therapy lowers the amount of virus in your body . This does two things:

  • Slows down the effects of HIV in your body, which keeps you healthy.

  • Lowers or even stops your chances of giving HIV to sexual partners.

Some people on ART have such a small amount of virus in their body, they cant transmit HIV to their sexual partners at all.

Even if youre feeling totally fine right now, see a doctor as soon as you can so you can talk about the best ways to stay healthy. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions hotline can help you find a doctor near you who specializes in treating HIV: 1-800-CDC-INFO .

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What Do I Need To Know About Dating With Hiv

Some people feel like their love lives are over when they find out they have HIV, but its just not true. People with HIV can have fulfilling romantic and sexual relationships. People living with HIV can have relationships with partners who dont have HIV or with partners that are also living with HIV . HIV treatment helps keep you healthy and helps you avoid passing HIV to someone else. If your partner does not have HIV, they can also take a medicine called PrEP that can help protect them from getting HIV through sex.

Its important to tell your sexual partners about your HIV status. That way, you and your partners can make more informed decisions about safer sex, testing, and treatment that are right for the both of you.

Its normal to be worried about how your partners going to react. And theres no way around it: some people might get freaked out. If that happens, try to stay calm and talk about your plan to stay healthy and how they can stay HIV negative. It might help to give your partner a little time and space to process. You could also suggest they talk with your HIV doctor about ways to protect themselves from HIV.

If you tell someone you have HIV and they hurt you, shame you, or make you feel bad, its not ok. You deserve to be with someone who respects and cares about you, and there are plenty of people out there who will.

Growing Older With Hiv

Today, thanks to improvements in the effectiveness of treatment with HIV medicine , people with HIV who are diagnosed early and who get and stay on ART can keep the virus suppressed and live long and healthy lives. For this reason, nearly half of people living with diagnosed HIV in the United States are aged 50 and older. Many of them have been living with HIV for many years others were diagnosed with HIV later in life.

Thats a significant change from the early years of the epidemic when people who were diagnosed with HIV or AIDS could expect to live only 1-2 years after their diagnosis. This meant that the issues of aging were not a major focus for people with HIV disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , in 2018, over half of people in the United States and dependent areas with diagnosed HIV were aged 50 and older. In addition, people aged 50 and older accounted for 17% of the 37,968 new HIV diagnoses in 2018 in the United States and dependent areas. Though new HIV diagnoses are declining among people aged 50 and older, around 1 in 6 HIV diagnoses in 2018 were in this group.

People over age 50 with HIV make up 46.8% of the over half a million clients served by the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program . In 2019, 92.2% of clients aged 50 and older receiving RWHAP HIV medical care were virally suppressed, which was higher than the national RWHAP average .

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The Bottom Line On Hiv And Life Expectancy

After I explained all of this to my skeptical patient John, I repeated the good news that comes out of these life expectancy data: While it’s impossible to accurately predict how long any single person will live, as a group, the life expectancy for people living with HIV has dramatically improved, and continues to improve. In clinic after clinic, across the U.S. and in nations around the world, the death toll from AIDS has dropped and the average life expectancy has increased, as has the quality of those longer lives.

I also told John what I tell all my patients these days: My goal is to help ensure that both the duration and quality of his life end up well above those averages.

, is the senior vice president and chief medical officer of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care and an adjunct professor at the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Benjamin Young, M.D., Ph.D.

Ben Young, M.D., Ph.D., is a highly regarded HIV physician-researcher at the forefront of efforts to establish better coordinated care for people living with HIV. He was a Q& A expert and writer on TheBody for nearly 20 years, leaving in 2018.

Financial Considerations And Unexpected Long

How long do most people live with HIV | hiv/aids

Many LTS, who may have once seen no point in saving money for a future they didn’t believe they would see, now find themselves in difficult financial situations as they grow older.

  • In the LTS community, “retirement” has been a euphemism for being on permanent disability, an unstable form of income that is also difficult to get off
  • Due to eligibility requirements for various forms of public assistance, people living and growing older with HIV often have little choice but to keep their incomes low, making it nearly impossible to save for the future
  • Long gaps in work histories, as well as ageism, pose additional challenges for LTS returning to work
  • Panic about the future, and an inability to plan for or conceive of the future, are symptoms of the compounded traumas of ASS
  • Faced with much longer life expectancy, LTS now find themselves asking “What’s next?”

“I have been on Social Security Disability Income for the past 11 years ever since my AIDS diagnosis. I have been told by many people ‘Do not go back to work, it will screw everything up!’ Why does this all have to be so complicated and stressful?” Vickie Lynn, from “Going back to work?!?,” on A Girl Like Me

End-of-life planning can be an empowering process when, earlier in the HIV epidemic, there was not much time or space to be thoughtful about such plans. Now, that end will most likely be much farther off than once expected.

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How Does Hiv Affect A Person In The Long Term

Though the outlook has gotten much better for those with HIV, there are still some long-term effects that they might experience.

As time passes, people living with HIV may begin to develop certain side effects of treatment or HIV itself.

These may include:

The body may also undergo a shift in how it processes sugars and fats. This can lead to having more fat in certain areas of the body, which can change the bodys shape. However, these physical symptoms are more common with older HIV medications. Newer treatments have far fewer, if any, of these symptoms affecting physical appearance.

If treated poorly or left untreated, HIV infection can develop into stage 3 HIV, or AIDS.

A person develops stage 3 HIV when their immune system is too weak to defend their body against infections. A healthcare provider will likely diagnose stage 3 HIV if the number of certain white blood cells in an HIV-positive persons immune system drops below 200 cells per mL of blood.

Life expectancy is different for every person living with stage 3 HIV. Some people may die within months of this diagnosis, but the majority can live fairly healthy lives with regular antiretroviral therapy.

Symptoms Of Hiv Infection

Most people experience a short flu-like illness 2 to 6 weeks after HIV infection, which lasts for a week or 2.

After these symptoms disappear, HIV may not cause any symptoms for many years, although the virus continues to damage your immune system.

This means many people with HIV do not know they’re infected.

Anyone who thinks they could have HIV should get tested.

Some people are advised to have regular tests as they’re at particularly high risk.

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Start Hiv Treatment As Soon As Possible After Diagnosis

  • Get in care and take medicine to treat HIV .
  • Taking HIV medicine can reduce the amount of HIV in the blood .
  • HIV medicine can make the viral load very low . Viral suppression is defined as having less than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood.
  • HIV medicine can make the viral load so low that a test cant detect it .
  • Getting and keeping an undetectable viral load is the best thing you can do to stay healthy. Having an undetectable viral load also helps prevent transmission to others. In fact, if you have an undetectable viral load, you have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative partner through sex. Most people can get the virus under control within six months.

Factors That Reduce Life Expectancy

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But there are challenges that can take back many of those gains. From an individual perspective, longevity is subject to numerous factors that can either increase or decrease life expectancy in a person with HIV. These factors range from things we can control to things we can’t .

Moreover, HIV is really only part of the long-term concern. Even for those able to maintain an undetectable viral load, the risk of non-HIV-associated diseases, like cancer and heart disease, is far greater than in the general population and can occur anywhere from 10 to 15 years earlier.

So profound are these concerns that a person with HIV is far more likely to die prematurely of a non-HIV-related illness than an HIV-related one.

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What Is The Last Stage Of Hiv Infection

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is the final and most severe stage of HIV infection. Because HIV has severely damaged the immune system, the body can’t fight off opportunistic infections.

  • If ART is not given, HIV infection usually advances to AIDS in 10 years or longer. In some people, however, it may advance faster.
  • In this stage, HIV reduces CD4 cell counts to very low levels which severely damages the immune system.
  • The week immune system cannot fight even those bacteria, viruses, and fungi which are unable to cause disease in other healthy people . Opportunistic infections are infections and infection-related cancers that occur more frequently or are more severe in people with weakened immune systems than in people with healthy immune systems.
  • Once a person progresses to AIDS, they have a high viral load and can transmit HIV to others very easily.
  • In the absence of treatment, people with AIDS typically survive for about three years.

Newly Diagnosed With Hiv

What does an HIV diagnosis mean?

  • If you receive an HIV diagnosis, it means that you have HIV.
  • Unlike some other viruses, the human body cant get rid of HIV completely. Once you have HIV, you have it for life.
  • But with proper medical care, HIV can be controlled. People with HIV who get effective HIV treatment can live long, healthy lives and protect their partners.

What should I do if I just got diagnosed with HIV?

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Hiv Care Saves Lives Infographic

Viral suppression is the goal of HIV medical care. There are four key steps:

Step 1: HIV testing and diagnosis.

  • About 14% of people living with HIV have never been diagnosed.
  • Everyone needs to be tested to find out if they have HIV so they can start getting the medical care needed for viral suppression and reduce their risk of transmitting the virus to others.

Step 2: Getting and keeping people living with HIV in medical care.

  • Only 40% of people living with HIV have received regular HIV medical care.
  • Once in medical care, people can get HIV medicines and prevention services to help them stay healthy and protect their partners.
  • Doctors, nurses, and other health care providers can use strategies, such as appointment reminders, to help patients stay in care.

Step 3: Prescribing HIV medicines.

  • Only 37% of people living with HIV are prescribed HIV medicines. Too many have not been diagnosed or are not in HIV medical care.
  • However, of patients in HIV medical care, 92% are prescribed HIV medicines.
  • Doctors, nurses, and other health care providers should prescribe HIV medicines to everyone with HIV to lower the amount of virus in the body.

Step 4: Helping patients achieve viral suppression.

HIV care Continuum Shows Where Improvements are NeededOf the 1.2 million people living with HIV, 86% are diagnosed, 40% are engaged in care, 37% are prescribed antiretroviral medicines, and 30% are virally suppressed.

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