What is the Importance of Knowing HIV Symptoms?
HIV attacks the immune system and exposes the body to opportunistic infections. HIV is spread through transfer of bodily fluids often by sexual contact, contaminated needles, or mother-to-child transmission. HIV symptoms differ based on the stage of infection.
Incubation Period
The incubation period occurs at the onset of infection and lasts for 2 to 4 weeks. There is no visible sign of infection at this stage.
Acute Infection
The second stage is acute infection. Patients experience flu-like symptoms at this stage such as sore throat, rash, muscle pain, and fatigue coupled with swelling of the lymph nodes and sores in the mouth and the esophagus. Other occasional symptoms include headache, nausea, enlargement of the liver or spleen, thrush, moderate weight loss and neurological symptoms.
This stage appears 2 to 4 weeks from the onset of infection and lasts and average of 28 days. The type and extent of HIV symptoms vary in patients. At this stage, patients are highly contagious. However, many are not aware of the true nature of their own disease, mistaking them for other more common benign ailments.
Clinical Latency
The latency stage is marked by minimal or no symptoms depending on the immune system of the patient. It can last anywhere from 2 weeks to 20 years. During this stage, the infection is in full force within lymphoid organs and in areas where helper T cells abound.
AIDS
The fourth and final stage of HIV is AIDS or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. At this stage, the number of helper T cells in the body is at a critical point that opportunistic microbes set in causing infections and tumors. The initial signs are similar to HIV symptoms in earlier stages although more intense. In addition, the patient may experience prostatitis as well as chronic infections of the respiratory tract such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. As the disease progresses, the body becomes susceptible once more to dormant herpes viruses and may suffer from such diseases as singles, herpes simplex outbreak or Karposi’s sarcoma.
The Importance of Recognizing the Disease
HIV is dangerous because aside from the fact that it is has no known vaccine nor complete cure, there are oftentimes negligible or no HIV symptoms to cause alarm in patients at an early stage when appropriate intervention can be administered with marked success.
HIV patients rely on a treatment option known as highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART, a combination of drugs that inhibit the effect of the virus to the body. It is critical to administer the drugs at a stage when the level of helper T cells in the body is still sufficient. Thus it is important for patients to recognize the syndrome and to undergo screening at the slightest suspicion. GP