I hear from doctors that hiv is becoming more and more like a manageable chronic life long?

Question

illness like diabetes rather than a fatal one, and it only becomes fatal when people stop taking there meds or don't adher to the exact schedule of them (now that i hear a "once a day pill for hiv" has come out i don't see how hard it is to stick with that) has anyone else heard anything on this subject? i'd love to hear some feedback.thanks

Answer 1

Yes, it is. The average life expectancy for someone who has AIDS and receives treatment is roughly 24 years. The reason that people have trouble with keeping up with the meds isn't necessarily that they can't manage to remember to take the pills, it's that they're EXTREMELY expensive and most people can't afford to keep paying for them. AZT for example is $4000/year - and that's just one drug out of the complex which are usually needed for proper treatment. Since AIDS disrupts the immune system, there's usually more drugs needed to deal with the complications that come along with it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228798,00.html has more info, but basically they expect that someone with AIDS will spend over $25,000 per year on treatment. I don't know about you, but there's no WAY that I could afford $25K on top of normal living expenses, especially if I couldn't work.

Answer 2

The medication is expensive and the treatment is almost as bad as the disease. I've seen lots of shows about people with HIV, and they talk about how sick the drugs make them feel and the side effects can be quite debilitating.

I don't know, it doesn't matter how long you can live with it. I can't imagine the kind of life one would have to live ... take the meds ... feel sick from them ... don't take the meds ... feel sick from the disease. Then, for some, the meds stop working and they have to find a new regimine of drugs. The disease keeps mutating, after all it is a virus. No, thank you!

I think it's better to not get it in the first place.

Answer 3

Sounds like a very expensive life to me. One slip up, and your chronic disease becomes a fatal one once again. Wouldn't it be better to simply protect yourself from the disease to begin with?

Answer 4

Yes you can live many years with the disease. However most people who have it can't afford the medication so they are doomed. Also the drug has significant side effects and will lose effectiveness after repeated use.

Answer 5

Maybe but if you have sex with a diabetic it dosen't give you diabetes. I don't think that a once a day HIV pill should advocate free love environment from whence the disease sprang.