Almost done!

Hi everyone,

It is almost my last week here with you guys and it is a bittersweet moment. I have decided that in the next couple of semesters I am going to try and see if I can do research on if holistic remedies have any sort of effect on HIV/AIDS. Mainly I was going to see if certain herbs, and magnetic frequencies effect HIV/AIDS.

This week we were asked about if we think the Campus Confidentiality is a good idea or not. Basically, it states that if a student who is HIV positive and is having unprotected sex with someone else a health worker has the right to disclose their status. I believe it is a good idea in most situations, especially if there is proof that the student is having unprotected sex, and is trying to hide their status. However, I do believe that the workers should only disclose their status if there is absolute proof that the HIV positive student is having unprotected sex.

Also this week I attended a HIV positive panel with four different men and was shocked for so many different reasons. They all looked healthy to me and all averaged about 15 years since being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. It shocked me that most of them only see a doctor once every four months, and there viral loads are not detectable in most cases. I see doctors more than once every four months! This has just showed me that we have come so far since the recognition of HIV/AIDS and a cure is within arms reach. I expected to see them with KS lesions or oxygen tanks and to look old, but none of them had any visual symptoms of HIV/AIDS and one guy was even a body builder. It makes me happy that HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence and with all of the medical advancements HIV/AIDS patients can live a somewhat normal life.

Did you Know:

In this weeks did you know I would like to talk about HIV drugs and resistance. HIV drugs help stop most of the replication process in HIV/AIDS, but does not kill and stop the virus all together. And according to Avert every time HIV replicates it becomes slightly better than it was before, thus becoming resistant to HIV drugs. This is noticed by the viral load increasing, and the doctor should change the drug regimen, because the pills will not effect HIV/AIDS at all. Also Avert stated that you can avoid drug resistance by taking multiple pills, taking the pills on schedule, and regularly testing the viral load. Also according to Avert drugs can have another for of resistance called cross-resistance. Cross-resistance means that if HIV is resistant to one drug it can be resistant to another drug within the same group. Cross-resistance is most common with ARVs and can limit the amount drug regimens a patient can be on. HIV drug resistant strains are very threatening and on the rise, and if we do not find a solution to this problem we will eventually have a HIV strain that is resistant to all HIV drugs.

AVERT (2010). Continuing (ARV) antiretrovial treatment. viewed (April 7, 2010). http://www.avert.org/arv-treatment.htm