^^ If rascalcat is referring to the numbers, the lower the viral load the better. The CD4 count on the other hand measures the level of your normal immune system cells, so you want to keep that number up.
I don't know how quickly the current drugs start working, but it used to be the case that when someone first started HIV medication it could take two or three months for the numbers to move significantly in the right direction.
Treatments aim to get the viral load to an undetectable level. Last I heard the lowest detectable level was 50. That sounds as if you have a long way to go, from 47,500 to 50, but it's not quite as bad as it sounds because virus populations behave logarithmically, like human populations. What I mean by that is that if it takes a certain time for the population to double, it will take roughly the same time to double again. Same applies when population is falling.
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Research in recent years indicates that for someone with HIV who is on medication and therefore has an undetectable viral load, the chances of passing it on are extremely low. So low in fact that such a person is LESS likely to transmit HIV than someone who does not know their HIV status. This is because of the significant chance they might have it, and the fact that symptoms can take some time to appear.
That last paragraph is worth reading again, slowly, and thinking about the implications. Let's suppose you had a test last week and tested negative. Have you had unprotected sex since then? if so, you don't know your HIV status. Some of us remember when the epidemic first started, and there was a bit of a craze among certain sections of the population to demand of a prospective sex partner that they show you a "certificate" indicating they were HIV negative. Such certificates were worthless, because they were valid only at the moment they were issued.
My advice to the OP:
- Follow the prescribed treatment; the doctors know what they are doing.
- take care of your health in other ways, i.e. good diet, exercise, etc.
- Resist efforts to stigmatise you as if you are somehow to blame for contracting HIV. especially from people you may have had sexual contact with. Some people want to play the blame game "I'm sure that guy gave me HIV", as though that was going to solve anything - when a better way to express it would be "We did this, and we did that, and it may have resulted in my contracting HIV from him.:" In other words, the responsibility is shared.
- Like others have said, don't let HIV define you.
Have you thought about visiting an HIV support group? A lot of things you are going through are roads others have traveled before you. It might be encouraging and instructive to talk and be somewhere where people get exactly what you are going through.
stance where most people would only see tears and death. This is one more opportunity to choose to follow the love and tell the fear to take a hike.
