What Are The Symptoms Of HIV?
- Sunday, October 25, 2009, 23:18
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HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus is perhaps the deadliest and most challenging diseases of the world. This lethal virus was identified in the year 1984 and over 30 million individuals are afflicted by it all over the world. The most critical aspect of this disease is that it is incurable and does not have any symptoms.
Once an individual contracts the virus he/she might appear to be absolutely healthy and not even know about being infected. This is because the period when the individual is initially infected to the time when the symptoms begin to manifest ranges between 2-20 years with the average being 11 years in most cases.
HIV can be transmitted from an infected person to a healthy one through unprotected sexual contact, exposure to infected blood and from an HIV positive mother to her baby during pregnancy, childbirth or while breastfeeding. Individuals of all age groups, genders and socio-economic status can be affected by HIV.
Symptoms of HIV:
HIV usually manifests itself in the form of persistent swollen glands, rashes, sores or other growths on or beneath the skin, mouth, mucus membranes of the eyes, nasal passages or anus, formation of lumps, unexplained weight loss, drenching night sweats, persistent yeast infections, fever, persistent diarrhea, tremors, shortness of breath, easy bruising, persistent or recurring pain, unexplained bleeding, extreme fatigue, changes in hearing, vision, smell or taste, changes in mood, memory loss, difficulty swallowing etc.
Since the disease attacks and weakens the Immune System, individuals with HIV are highly susceptible to common as well as uncommon infections. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia is the most common infection seen in HIV infected individuals. Another disease, Kaposi’s sarcoma, a rare type of cancer is mostly seen in HIV positive men.
Persistent vaginal yeast infections that fail to respond to treatment are a common indicator of HIV infection in women. Other diseases associated with HIV include tuberculosis, AIDS dementia, invasive cervical cancer, microbacterium avium complex, retinitis, cryptosporidiosis and cytomegalovirus.
HIV and women:
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia is the most common infection associated with HIV in both men and women. Kaposi’s sarcoma is rarely seen in women affected by HIV as it tends to strike men. Thrush is the earliest indicator of HIV infection in women and is most likely to occur in the mouth and throat as the T-cell count declines in the body.
Women with HIV are also highly susceptible to contracting the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) that is known to cause genital warts and is also associated with cervical cancer. All women with abnormal Pap smears, genital ulcers, persistent yeast infections and pelvic inflammatory disease must get themselves tested for HIV.
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