bearbandit Posted May 3, 2016 Report Posted May 3, 2016 As others have remarked, we don't know the starting point... What's normal for one person is high for another and low for a third. Also the CD4 count is a vague and wandering creature: a cigarette a few minutes before the blood is drawn can add 10% to 20% to the result. Admittedly I was pretty sick at my nadir of 80, but I was mentally and physically exhausted when my partner died and had a CD4 (my highest ever) of 880.My partner had a good way of expressing it: what's normal for you? He had naturally low blood pressure and used to have to warn medical staff taking his blood pressure of this lest he find himself being admitted to the ward. Low blood pressure was "normal for John".Increasingly, despite the US' insistence on using a CD count as part of the definition of aids (in the UK we can now say "when I had aids"), it's emerging that the important number is the viral load, which shows how well suppressed and unable to cause further damage the virus is. 1 Quote
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