Sunday, February 11, 2018

Can I Delay My Treatment?

Hi.

I just want to ask if im HIV postive, is it ok if will start treatment after one year?
Because I am currently working now in other country. My contract will finish next year and i need to earn money for my possible treatment.

In your case do you experience any HIV symptoms before?. Because i already experience  the symptoms for two months. 

What do I need to do? When will I develop opportunistic infection if i will not start the treatment?

Please help me. Thank you!

XXX

POZZIEPINOY’S RESPONSE

Hi XXX,

Thank you for your email. Thank you for finding the blog. 

When to start your treatment is your choice. However, we always advice to have immediate treatment and not allow your immune system to be compromised by prolonging the start of the treatment. If you start early while your immune system is still strong, then the recovery is faster. You will get a good result fast with your viral load as compared to prolonging the start of treatment. Also, you are correct that prolonging the start of the treatment may result to the emergence of opportunistic infections which may resut to costlier treatment. 

HIV per se has no symptoms, except during the initial period of transmission. However, after the flu-like symptoms that one will experience during the first weeks of infection, one won’t feel any symptoms at all. The possible symptoms that one may experince may be a result of the depression of the immune caused by HIV. The symptoms of opportunistic infections or AIDS-related infections are very specific to that certain infection. For instance, the depressed immune system would cause the emergence of pneumocystiis carinii pneumonia and the presentation would be difficulty of breathing and dry cough. In other words, each individual would have a different predilection for opportunistic infections, thus different symptoms may arise.

You never mentioned any of the symptoms that you are experiencing. However, those can be anything since you have not undergone the HIV test yet. Let us start from there. For all we know, you might be worrying about nothing. You are already planning for something when you haven’t taken the first step yet. Take the HIV test first then we can plan on the things that you need to do.

In case, you turn out to be HIV positive, the lab tests, consultation and HIV treatment here in the Philippines are free in all government HIV and AIDS Treatment hubs. Your membership with PhilHealth, will assure you of coverage of the Out-patient HIV annd AIDS Treatment (OHAT) package which would cover most of your lab tests and consultation. Unfortunately if you have opportunistic infections, most of the labs and treatment are not covered by the OHAT anymore, thus makes treatment and hospitalization very costly to one.

I understand that you want to earn more money thus you want to delay the HIV treatment. However, if in case you have HIV and you have it for years now, you are already compromising your health and may result to more expensive treatment. My point is, get treatment as soon as possible while you don’t have opportunistic infections yet. If I were you, go seek consultation with a doctor there for your infections. You never mentioned which country you are working at so be extra careful also if you are in the middle east, Singapore or any muslim countries as they ban foreigners working there with HIV. I don’t want you to get deported and black listed. However, if you are in another country aside from the countries that I mentioned, please, just take the HIV test and get treatment there. There is no reason for you to delay treatment anymore.

Whatever you choice is, Project Red Ribbon will be here for you. You can call us anytime so we can talk about the things you need to do. 

I do hope that I was able to answer your concern. Feel free to email me again if you have other questions.

POZZIEPINOY



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