Recently poz

[Guest pozbottom79]

I tested poz 12 days back and the medical center started me on Biktarvy. They took blood on the day they started my meds for finding my viral load and it shows less than 40 copies per ml. T cell count is 1147. I have an appointment next week with the provider, but isn't that a low viral count for me being newly diagnosed? I thought under 40 is undetectable?

 

Genuinely asking. 

[Cuteguy69]

I sick like crazy at 14 000

and cd4 at 570

[Guest Descartes70817]

Nowadays anything under 20 is undetectable but if you've just started on meds it takes a while to clear out the dead viruses still in your system, and the debris will still show up in your labs. My ID doctor told me that realistically anything under 200 is un-infectious though.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Descartes70817

[Guest pozbottom79]

The thing is the day they took the blood (9 days ago), I hadnt even started on meds (I started meds the next day). So I am a little surprised that my viral load is showing as under 40. They had expected much higher values. Was wondering if this might have happened to someone else

[fillmyholeftl]

1 hour ago, pozbottom79 said:

I tested poz 12 days back and the medical center started me on Biktarvy. They took blood on the day they started my meds for finding my viral load and it shows less than 40 copies per ml. T cell count is 1147. I have an appointment next week with the provider, but isn't that a low viral count for me being newly diagnosed? I thought under 40 is undetectable?

 

Genuinely asking. 

Sometimes, if you've been infected awhile your body will naturally fight and you may get results like those. SOme people are also "non Progressors" whose CD4 never falls.  Good Luck

[PupDearCanu]

Congratulations on the end of your chase

[BootmanLA]

As others have noted, the human body can do a fairly good job (at first) at keeping the virus at bay after an initial infection surge in the viral load. Depending on when you were infected, you could be in that stage.

That's a good thing for your long-term health prognosis. It means your body has good "reserves" of healthy t-cells, so if your treatment keeps the virus itself knocked down, your body can deal with all the other things that come up along the way just like anyone else. 

Biktarvy is also a medication that is "friendly" to other parts of your body, like your kidneys. That means by itself, it shouldn't push you into having dysfunctional kidneys or kidney disease. 

[Guest pozbottom79]

21 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

As others have noted, the human body can do a fairly good job (at first) at keeping the virus at bay after an initial infection surge in the viral load. Depending on when you were infected, you could be in that stage.

That's a good thing for your long-term health prognosis. It means your body has good "reserves" of healthy t-cells, so if your treatment keeps the virus itself knocked down, your body can deal with all the other things that come up along the way just like anyone else. 

Biktarvy is also a medication that is "friendly" to other parts of your body, like your kidneys. That means by itself, it shouldn't push you into having dysfunctional kidneys or kidney disease. 

The medical center has informed me that while I have the virus, I am either an extremely slow progressor or a non progressor, which makes me a rare minority, and a lucky one. That means my body has been able to keep the virus at bay almost entirely (they cannot find an exact number of viral copies under 40 in the test that they use, and cannot genome sequence either). So meds continue, but long term this is the best from a survival POV