Treating HIV

Antiretroviral treatment starts to work from the first dose you take. The number of copies of the virus, called your viral load, drops quickly in the first week of starting ART, with some people reducing their viral load by 90% in the first 7 days.

If you take your medication regularly as prescribed by your doctor, your viral load should continue to drop pretty steadily. As time goes by, and your viral load becomes even lower, the amount it drops will slow down too.  This is normal, as there is often so little of the virus left, that it can’t drop much more.

Many people will achieve a suppressed viral load within six months. If you maintain this very low level of the virus for six months, it’s called being undetectable.  You can read more about this here.

Everyone’s body is different however, and factors like your age, other health issues, general health, and how long you might have already been living with HIV might change how quickly the medications work.  Always talk to your doctor and follow their advice about your medications and when you should check in to see how things are going.

Injectables provide medication in injection rather than tablet form. The medication stays in the body longer so people can get an injection less often than taking pills.  In recently published studies, these are proven to be very similar in effectiveness to their tablet counterparts.

A long-acting antiretroviral (ARV) injectable, which only needs to be injected every one to two months, has been approved for use in Australia, and is available through Medicare like other HIV medications.  It is currently only available to be administered by a medical professional, so you can’t do it yourself.

Like all HIV medications, they aren’t for everyone, so talk to your doctor if you are interested in an injectable option to replace your tablet form.

The advanced stage of HIV infection is known as AIDS, which stands for ‘Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome’. AIDS cannot be transmitted between people; it is the result of a badly damaged immune system due to HIV, which allows opportunistic infections (such as pneumonia) to thrive in the body.  An AIDS defining illness can be prevented with treatment and should not be confused with HIV.

With advances in treatment, HIV no longer has to result in an AIDS defining illness.  Treatments now keep people living with HIV healthy, ensuring they live a long and fulfilling life that does not progress to an AIDS defining illness (such as pneumonia). Now that we have the knowledge and ability to prevent an AIDS defining illness, there is a lot of excitement generating as we get closer than ever to preventing the transmission of HIV.