Contracting HIV can be a devastating event. While treatments have improved considerably over the past several decades, HIV-positive individuals still have shorter lifespans than those without the virus. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus attacks a person’s immune system, making them more susceptible to to other diseases. In fact, related conditions are responsible for more deaths than AIDS, the disease it can develop into.

Since they are susceptible to many health conditions, such as pneumonia, that would leave a healthy person unscathed (even a common cold can be serious), people with HIV/AIDS will require more healthcare spending. The expensive prescription cocktails required to slow the virus’ transformation into AIDS is usually not available in generic forms. Finding health insurance can be a Herculean task, especially in the current American system. Most health insurance companies will reject such a patient, because they will lose money from their policy.

In ideal circumstances, everybody would fully protect themselves from HIV: avoiding unprotected sex and intravenous drug use are two risk factors. However, some people have either made bad choices or been deceived. Unfortunately, they have relatively few options. Guaranteed issue health insurance plans come with very expensive premiums, and may exclude at least part of their HIV-related treatments. Their treatment is also likely to exceed annual and lifetime policy limits.

The best case scenario for an HIV-positive person is if they already have existing health insurance prior to their diagnosis. However, that is not always sufficient protection. Some health insurers practice rescission in order to avoid paying for serious, life threatening diseases contracted by a policyholder. Rescission entails automatically targeting those policyholders diagnosed with costly conditions (such as HIV) for fraud, and using the smallest excuse to drop their policy. In one case, an HIV-positive male had his policy rescinded due to an incorrect date written on a note from a nurse that implied that he may have been diagnosed prior to buying his health insurance policy, without double-checking the medical records. Instead, they immediately stopped the investigation and dropped him.

Due to the cost of HIV treatment, a person could’ve died because someone forgot to check a calendar. In the cases of those with HIV, the virus can lie dormant for years after an infection. Even with the best test, it can take up to 30 days for a new infection to show up. If a person buys (and is underwritten for) a health insurance plan after being unknowingly infected with HIV–but before they knew they had it–should that be considered fraud? According to some health insurers, the answer is yes.

These people did the right thing when it comes to insurance: they bought and retained coverage before they were sick with a pre-existing condition. There is often a lack of written policies detailing when insurers can rescind a policy, nor much opportunity for appeals. While singling out HIV-positive patients for discriminatory health insurance rescission is thankfully rare, everyone should be on the lookout for such actions.

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This short video documentary highlights various takeaways from a journalist training workshop held in Lusaka, Zambia in 2009. The focus of the workshop was to improve science reporting (specifically TB and HIV) within the country.
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AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome it causes a destruction of the immune system. It is the most advanced stage of the HIV virus (HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus). AIDS is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the presence of a positive HIV antibody test and one or more of the illnesses known as opportunistic infections.

The HIV virus, type 1 or 2 is widely known to be the cause of AIDS. HIV breaks down and attacks your T cells so your body is unable to defend itself against different infections. The HIV virus also attacks your peripheral nervous system, this causes nerve and muscle pain, especially in the feet, legs, and hands.
HIV is spread through direct contact with semen or blood of an individual that is infected. This can be transferred in many ways the most common is unprotected sexual intercourse. Other means of infection are infected blood transfusions, mother to infant (at time of birth, or through breast milk), sharing needles with an infected person, and rarely a healthcare worker that gets pricked with an infected needle.

Often people who are infected with HIV have few symptoms and in some cases there are none. Other times, symptoms of HIV are confused with other illnesses such as the flu. This may be severe, with swollen glands in the neck and armpits, tiredness, fever and night sweats. This is where as much as 9 out of 10 of the infected individuals will develop AIDS. At this point the person may feel completely healthy and not even know that he/she has the virus. The next stage begins when the immune system starts to break down and the virus becomes more aggressive in damaging white cells. Several glands in the neck and armpits may swell and stay swollen for an extended period of time without any explanation. As this disease progresses boils or warts may spread over the body. They may also feel tremendously tired, night sweats, high fevers, chronic diarrhea, and they may lose a considerable amount of their body weight. Most cases have shown thrush as a symptom as well. At this point the person is in the final stages of HIV–AIDS. Severe chest infections with high fever are common and survival rate is above 70% but decrease with each recurrence.

A person is diagnosed with AIDS when he/she has one or more positive HIV screening and the presence of an AIDS defining condition.  Some of the common conditions include but are not limited to: Meningitis, Encephalitis, Dementia, Pneumonia, Kaposi sarcoma, and Lymphoma. There is also a blood test called an Immune Profile that can be done. This test is used to measure the loss of immunity and help decide on the best treatment. There is a test that is rarely used due to its high cost, it is known as a Viral Load: This test detects the virus itself, and also measures the amount of HIV in the blood. It shows how quickly the HIV infection is likely to advance. A high viral load suggests that the person may progress rapidly to AIDS.

Although there is no cure for AIDS there are medical treatments that aide in prolonging, and maintaining the best quality of life possible. These include two nucleoside inhibitors, lamivudine and zidovudine. Actual treatment plans will vary with each patient, along with the physical aspect of this disease. The psychological side has to be addressed in order for a treatment plan to be effective.

The easiest way to escape contracting this disease is to avoid the risk factors that you are in control of. Such as: unprotected sex, not sharing  a needle, and if you are in the healthcare field be sure to use all precautions necessary to avoid an accidental prick from a possible infected needle (remember that in this diseases early stages it is common for the person not to even know they are infected). Today AIDS is the fifth leading cause of death among all adults aged 25 to 44 in the United States. Among African-Americans in the 25 to 44 age group, AIDS is the leading cause of death for men and the second leading cause of death for women.  Our society needs to become aware that by not protecting ourselves we are killing ourselves and that this has to stop.

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A little history on AZT and the Concorde study: www.virusmyth.com For more on AZT, with focus on Africa: www.tig.org.za Today’s drug cocktails are not exactly ok either: videos.nymag.com Is HIV really the cause of AIDS? What is “AIDS”? What is “HIV”? This is a controversial discussion about HIV/AIDS. There are 4 parts, I cut out ca. 30 minutes: www.youtube.com The entire debate is on GoogleVideo: video.google.com More videos can be found here: www.immunity.org.uk Donations to IRF are welcome. Participants are: Joan Shenton Peter Duesberg Richard Horton Mark Kaplan Frederick Siegal Steven Jonas Robert Garry James Scutero and Dara Welles It is important to note that this debate has been completely ignored back then. Of course some things have changed but the most important questions are still not resolved and nowadays it isn’t even being debated. For more information please visit: www.RethinkingAIDS.com UPDATE Please visit www.theperthgroup.com instead. Because: www.tig.org.za
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Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health concern in many parts of the world. STDs affect women and men of all ages and different racial/ethnic backgrounds. The number of people getting STDs continues to rise as the young people, today, become sexually active at earlier ages, and the sexually active people tend to have more than one sex partner during their lives. All this increases a person’s chance of getting exposed to an STD.

Most of the time, STDs cause no symptoms, and if the symptoms develop, they may be confused with those of other diseases. The result is that the infections go untreated, leading to severe health consequences. Also, even if one has no symptoms of an STD, he/she can still pass the infection on to another person. It thus becomes imperative for individuals to get tested.

There are some fully certified STD Testing Centers that offer home test kits for doing private and anonymous tests for some of the most prevalent venereal diseases like:

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) – HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. Timely testing and treatment for other STDs can be an effective tool in preventing the spread of HIV.
Chlamydia – Most people who have Chlamydia do not know about it. If left untreated, Chlamydia can result in serious health problems, such as infertility in women. Young, sexually active females need testing every year.
Syphilis – Syphilis is passed from person to person through direct contact with a syphilis sore during vaginal, anal or oral sex. It is easy to treat and cure in its early stages.
Gonorrhea – Most of the people who have gonorrhea don’t know about it, as the disease often has no symptoms. A timely test can diagnose and help treat Gonorrhea easily.
Hepatitis B – Many people who become infected with HBV experience mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, but they may still carry the infectious virus and pass it on to others. A timely test leading to a positive result can be immediately referred to a specialist.
Hepatitis C – An infected person without symptoms can still act as a carrier and pass the virus on to others. A timely test can prevent this, and the infected person can be totally cured and rendered virus free.

All these home testing kits comply with ISO 9001, and are thus extremely reliable and safe to use. As most STDs can be cured by taking appropriate medicines, an early diagnosis through home tests can really help to treat most of the STDs successfully.

While home testing is important, there’s no substitute for speaking to a physician. Learn how to talk to doctors about HIV testing in this free health video on the human immunodeficiency virus from a certified medical assistant. Expert: Taylor Smith Bio: Taylor Smith, CMA, is a multifaceted Certified Medical Assistant. Filmmaker: Doug Craig
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In this demonstration, an unknown man opens up a home HIV test, draws his blood, and sends it via FedEx.
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Around the world, women now make up half of all people living with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus (im-myoo-no-duh-fish-in-see), and AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. In the U.S., more than 25 percent of new infections are in women. Women of color are especially impacted by the disease. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women aged 25 to 34.

Although most of the cases reported early in the epidemic were men, it was not long before AIDS in women was identified. Women contracted the disease primarily by sex with bisexual men or infected drug-using men or through sharing contaminated needles with infected injection drug users (IDUs). The proportion of all AIDS cases that were women and adolescent girls (aged >13 years) increased from 8% in 1986 to 26% in 2001.

The first symptoms of HIV infection are very much the same in men and women, although they may be more pronounced in women. They are similar to those of other acute viral illnesses: fever, joint pain, muscle ache, diarrhea, vomiting and lymphadenopathy. Weight loss, sore throat, rash and oral ulcers are also common.

Women also experience HIV-associated gynecologic problems, many of which occur in uninfected women but with less frequency or severity. Vaginal yeast infections, common and easily treated in most women, often are particularly persistent and difficult to treat in HIV-infected women. Other vaginal infections may occur more frequently and with greater severity in HIV-infected women, including bacterial vaginosis and common STIs such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis.

Severe herpes simplex virus ulcerations, which are sometimes unresponsive to therapy with the standard drug acyclovir, can severely compromise a woman’s quality of life. Idiopathic genital ulcers, with no evidence of an infectious organism or cancerous cells in the lesion, are a unique manifestation of HIV infection. HPV infections, which cause genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer, occur more frequently in HIV-infected women. A precancerous condition associated with HPV, called cervical dysplasia, is also more common and more severe in HIV-infected women and more apt to recur after treatment. PID appears to be more common and more aggressive in HIV-infected women than in uninfected women. Menstrual irregularities frequently are reported by HIV-infected women too.

Women whose HIV infections are detected early and receive appropriate treatment survive as long as HIV-infected men. Although several studies have shown HIV-infected women to have shorter survival times than men, this may be because women are less likely than men to be diagnosed early.

In an analysis of several studies involving more than 4,500 people with HIV infection, women were 33 percent more likely than men to die within the study period. The investigators could not definitively identify the reasons for excess mortality among women in this study, but they speculated that poorer access to or use of health care resources among HIV-infected women as compared to men, domestic violence, homelessness, and lack of social supports may have been important factors.

For any information related with HIV AIDS in women ask the doctor at Simplyanswer and take medical consultation services with in 24 hours.

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Symptoms of a kidney infection include increased urination, the inability to urinate, burning with urination and possible abdominal pain. Discover how kidney infections can cause pus or blood in the urine with help from a nurse and respiratory care practitioner in this free video on kidney infection symptoms.
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