HIV Treatment Adherence

Treatment adherence (or compliance) refers to the HIV positive individual’s ability to stick to the prescribed method of treatment. This includes such things as taking your pills on time, not missing a dose, and following any recommended food guidelines.

Adherence is important for two reasons:

1.) If you miss even one dose, the levels of medication in your blood drop, allowing faster replication of the HIV virus.
2.) Drug resistance develops much faster when you miss even one dose. This means that the drugs that you are currently taking may not continue to work, including some drugs that you may have not even tried yet! You will have fewer options for treatment in the future.

An excellent way to make sure that you never miss a dose is to use a scheduler on your computer that you can set up to prompt/remind you when to take your medication. Others may find marking it on a calendar may be a quick and easy way to keep track.

What are your tips for ensuring personal adherence to your HIV treatment? We’d love to hear your suggestions.

HIV and Selenium

Selenium is a mineral that has been in the news over the last year for its apparent beneficial results in HIV positive people. Selenium is an essential micronutrient; its dietary sources are nuts, cereals, meat, fish and eggs. Selenium deficiency is apparent in HIV disease, and predicts an increased risk of death. Current studies are finding promising results from selenium supplementation, and it should be considered as part of your supplementation program.

Daily supplementation with 200μg (mcg) of selenium has been shown to help stabilize viral load, and modestly increase CD4 counts in patients on antiretroviral therapy. These findings suggest selenium supplementation as a simple and inexpensive complimentary therapy for people with HIV. 1000μg is the upper tolerance, and selenium becomes toxic above this daily level.

Have you been taking selenium as part of your supplementation? We would love to hear what your experiences are.

HIV and Vitamin D Deficiency.

Vitamin D deficiency results in impaired bone mineralization, leading to diseases such as osteomalacia (bone softening) and osteoporosis. Vitamin D also plays an important role in maintaining organ systems. The Canadian Food Guide recommends a minimum of 200 IU daily for healthy individuals, with the upper daily tolerance around 2000 IU. The only significant natural dietary sources are oily fish and egg yolks, but it is not possible to intake enough through these foods alone. 15-20 minutes sun exposure, twice weekly will produce enough Vitamin D as it is synthesized through the skin, or a daily supplement can be taken.

Are you getting enough vitamin D through your diet and supplement program? Your doctor can test you to see if you’re deficient or not. Is vitamin D deficiency a concern to you? Do you take a vitamin D supplement already? If not, would you consider supplementing or not, and why do you feel that way?

Health Canada, Vitamin D.

HIV and Disclosure

When reviewing cases where a person with HIV is believed to not have informed a sexual partner of their HIV status, judges currently use Canada’s Currier decision (1998) which states “A person has a legal duty to disclose his or her HIV-positive status to sexual partners before having sex that poses a “significant risk” of HIV transmission.” This includes anal or vaginal sex without a condom. What else it includes is not fully clear.

Do you disclose to all of your partners, or only those whom you place at “significant risk”, and how do you determine whether the risk is significant or not? What are your thoughts on the Currier Decision? Is it clear enough, or do we need a list of what can or can’t be done, with or without disclosure? HIV is a disease, not a crime, perhaps clearer laws would help. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Canadian HIV law

Monitoring Your Immune System, Emphasis on Your!

You may be great about going in and getting your blood work done as recommended…but do you know what those results mean? What’s a CD4 count? Should it go up or down? Or what’s your Viral Load? Is a high number good or bad? And what’s this ratio that always comes up? If we are knowledgeable regarding this disease, we can actively participate in our own treatment.

Do you know the answers to these questions? More importantly do you know what the answers mean? How closely do you monitor your immune system and how do you do it, or do you? We’d like to hear your ideas on how to monitor your own immune system; perhaps your ideas can help someone else. Please tell us your thoughts.

More evidence continues to be found proving the dangerous effects of crystal meth, particularly for those who are at risk for or who have HIV.

With many HIV positive individuals battling issues such as depression, lack of energy, low self-confidence and anxiety, it’s easy to see how this drug has become a popular release from the stresses of living with HIV as it promises to temporarily erase or gloss over these concerns. Crystal meth may sound like a great cure for the woes of PHA’s, but Scientists continue to find more evidence of the dangerous and possible deadly results of its use, including the fact that meth can interfere and negate the effects of HAART, leading to a more rapid progression of HIV. Meth also causes permanent changes in the physical structure of the brain, possibly changing a person’s psychology and ability to think clearly.

What do you think? Is the risk worth the fun? Some feel that they can choose to use crystal meth occasionally; for example to enhance or prolong sexual pleasure, and then not think of the drug until the next party. Is this a healthy attitude? Or should we all be scared shitless of the fact that this drug will kill you (possibly), and never even be tempted by it? We want to know what you feel. What do you see out there? Tell us your thoughts.

Our treatment blog is currently in hiatus and will return in January 2009. In the meantime, please let us know what your areas of interest are. We notice there are many “hits” on the blog so many of you are reading, however there aren’t many comments made on the entries we make.

You can make comments by clicking comments section after this entry and then typing in your comment where it says leave your comment. You can click anonymous at the bottom of your comment if you wish to remain anonymous, and then click publish comment.

Please let us know what you think of our blog, what you want to know more about, and what your areas of interest are. Ask us a question. This will help us in generating more discussion of importance to you. See you in 2009!