You can have an HIV infection with few or no symptoms for years before it turns into AIDS. AIDS is diagnosed when the CD4 T cell count falls below 200 or you have a complication you get only if you have AIDS, such as a serious infection or cancer. Better antiviral treatments have greatly decreased deaths from AIDS worldwide. Thanks to these lifesaving treatments, most people with HIV in the U.S. today don’t get AIDS. Untreated, HIV most often turns into AIDS in about 8 to 10 years. The symptoms of HIV and AIDS vary depending on the person and the phase of infection.
But there’s a lot you can do to protect yourself from getting it in the first place. If you think you may have HIV or are at risk, get tested to find out. Taking medicines early can help limit damage to your immune system to keep you healthy. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) also can keep the virus at an undetectable level so that you can avoid passing the virus on to anyone else. When early (acute) symptoms are present, they will likely appear in the first month or two after infection.
Stages of HIV
- You can buy a self-test kit at a pharmacy or online, or your health care provider may be able to order one for you.
- Early signs of HIV can include fatigue, rash, fever, chills, headache, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, muscle aches, oral thrush, and night sweats.
- They may not suspect they have HIV but can spread the virus to others.
- Ideally, you’d start taking it within the first 24 hours.
Other causes of wasting include malnutrition, chronic diarrhea, tuberculosis, and cancer—all of which require urgent diagnosis and treatment. Weight loss is common in people living with HIV during the advanced stages of the disease. Sore throat and dry cough can be symptoms of early HIV infection, but they also appear in later stages of HIV. In later stages, these are persistent symptoms that do not resolve with medications such as inhalers or antibiotics. They are often related to secondary lung infections, which are common in the later stages of HIV.
Clinical latent infection, also called chronic HIV
Early diagnosis allows for timely treatment, which can prevent progression to AIDS and drastically reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to others. Widespread testing has been one of the cornerstones of global HIV prevention efforts. Certain behaviors and conditions increase the risk of acquiring HIV. Once you have been through the acute primary infection stage and seroconversion process, you can often start to feel better. HIV may not cause any other symptoms for up to 10 or even 15 years. In this early stage of infection, the amount of HIV in your blood is high.
Even as the other signs of the acute HIV infection go away, swollen lymph nodes can persist in some people for many weeks or months. However, the virus will still be active, infecting new cells and making copies of itself. If left untreated, HIV infection will cause severe damage to the immune system.
Related HIV.gov Blogs
But most people today who know they have HIV and get treatment never get AIDS. That’s because medicines can stop the virus from damaging your immune system. This is why it’s so important to get tested if you think you are at risk of HIV whether you have any symptoms or not. People with AIDS who don’t take medication live for about 3 years, or less if they get another infection.
Sudden, Unexplained Weight Loss
Thanks to treatment, most people in the U.S. don’t get AIDS. If you take these medications and have healthy habits, your HIV infection probably won’t get worse. It is considered “opportunistic” because it takes the opportunity to infect a person when their immune system is weak.
AIDS is not a single disease but a collection of conditions that occur because the immune system can no longer defend itself. More than four decades later, HIV/AIDS remains one of the most studied, feared, and misunderstood diseases in human history. It is a virus that has reshaped medicine, science, and society. Yet it is also a story of resilience, innovation, and hope. While millions have died, millions more are alive today thanks to advancements in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Antiretrovial treatment will allow your immune system to recover and stop the symptoms.
Treatment: From Fatal to Manageable
Chronic symptoms of HIV develop as the virus breaks down the body’s immune defenses, leaving it open to infection. During the chronic stage of HIV, many symptoms may be mild or non-specific, leading to an assumption that they are due to other causes. To understand HIV/AIDS is to understand not just a disease, but also the human struggle against stigma, inequality, and despair.
- They may not know they have the virus, but they can still pass on HIV.
- You may only get some of the symptoms and some people don’t have any symptoms at all.
- Antiretroviral therapy (ART) also can keep the virus at an undetectable level so that you can avoid passing the virus on to anyone else.
You can live for a long time if you start on HIV drugs, stay on them, follow your doctor’s advice, and keep healthy habits. When you have HIV, you will have a weakened immune system. As a result, you may be more likely to get other illnesses as well, which can come with common symptoms including a rash. If your rash is caused by medicine, you may need to see your doctor to find out if you should try a different one. Males and females generally have the same symptoms of HIV, but females may also have frequent yeast infections and irregular periods. Females living with HIV are also at an increased risk of pelvic inflammatory disease and cervical cancer.
Taking an HIV test is the only way to determine whether the virus is in the bitit review body. There are known risk factors that increase a person’s chance of contracting HIV. For example, people who’ve had sex without a condom or shared needles may want to consider seeing their healthcare professional about getting tested. The germs responsible for these infections are generally kept at bay in people who have an intact immune system. But when the immune system is impaired, these germs can attack the body and cause illness.
The Window Period
Missing doses can allow the virus to rebound and develop resistance. This makes counseling, education, and support systems crucial in HIV care. ART does not cure HIV, but with consistent use, people with HIV can live long, healthy lives. The course of HIV infection unfolds in several stages, each with distinct features.
In this stage of infection, HIV is still in the body and cells of the immune system, called white blood cells. But during this time, many people don’t have symptoms or the infections that HIV can cause. These symptoms can be so mild that you might not notice them.