Detect Early Symptoms of HIV and AIDS
Although often paired together, HIV and AIDS are not the same disease. To make it easier, HIV is a virus, while AIDS is a condition. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) attacks the body's immune system, especially T cells (CD4 cells) that help the immune system work to fight infection. If left untreated, over time HIV will reduce the number of T cells in the body so that the sufferer becomes very vulnerable to infectious diseases. If later diseases (both infectious diseases and other diseases such as cancer that are also triggered by infection) take over because the condition of the body whose immune system is already very weak, then this phase is called AIDS or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.
AIDS is also the final phase of HIV infection. But you need to know, not all people with HIV will suffer from AIDS. AIDS occurs when CD4 cell levels in the body decrease below 200 cells / mm 3 , while in normal adults, CD4 cell levels range from 500 cells / mm 3 to 1600 cells / mm 3 . A person can also be diagnosed with AIDS if he has contracted one or more infectious diseases that are a complication of HIV infection.
Early symptoms of HIV and AIDS vary for each person because symptoms usually also arise from infections acquired due to HIV complications.
Early symptoms of HIV infection
If someone is infected with HIV, then he can look fine because HIV does not always cause visible symptoms. But usually, HIV causes flu-like symptoms approximately within two to four weeks after the individual is infected. Symptoms are for example:
- Fever
- Shivering or chilling
- Redness of the skin
- Night sweats
- Pain in the body or feel the muscles are sore and sore
- Sore throat
- Feel tired quickly
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Wounds in the mouth
The phases that occur when a person is infected with HIV
These symptoms can last for several days to several weeks. This short period is called acute infection. If you have a test, HIV infection may not be read on the results but the patient is in a very infectious state and can spread the virus to other people.
At this stage, our immune system is still able to control viral activity. The immune system cannot eliminate HIV completely but can control HIV infection for a long time. This period is called the latent period or chronic HIV infection. When entering the latent period, people with HIV infection may not feel any symptoms. HIV is still active and reproduces very slowly. For those who do not take drugs to control HIV, this latent period can last for 10 years or more but can also be faster. While those who routinely take drugs can survive a latent period of several decades.
Despite being in a latent period and no symptoms appearing, HIV sufferers can still transmit HIV to others. But those who routinely take drugs and have very low levels of virus in the blood tend not to transmit HIV compared to those who do not take the drug.
Early symptoms of AIDS
If someone has HIV infection and does not get treatment, over time the virus will weaken the immune system and HIV develops into AIDS which is the final phase of HIV. Symptoms that appear in HIV can vary in each individual sufferer, because usually in the AIDS phase, various types of infections begin to attack patients. Some common symptoms of the AIDS phase are:
- Fast and unplanned weight loss
- Fluid or missing fever arises
- Excessive sweating, especially at night
- Feeling very tired even though you don't do heavy activities
- Prolonged swollen lymph nodes (usually the glands in the armpits, groin, or neck)
- Diarrhea that lasts for more than a week
- It arises wounds in the mouth, anus, and genital organs
- Have pneumonia
- A reddish, brown or purplish rash or boil arises under the skin or in the mouth, nose, and even eyelids
- Neurological disorders such as memory loss, depression, and others
Each of these symptoms can be different, related to the symptoms of infectious diseases suffered by people with AIDS. This type of infectious disease which is an HIV complication such as tuberculosis , herpes simplex , invasive cervical cancer, to encephalopathy.
The diagnosis of HIV and AIDS alone cannot be done just by checking the symptoms, it needs further examination to determine whether someone really has HIV AIDS. If the initial symptoms of HIV and AIDS occur to you, do not panic, check with your doctor especially if you are in a group that is vulnerable to HIV AIDS.
