Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date. My wife was diagnosed with HIV about eight years ago. She chose to not deal with it at all. About seventy days ago she was admitted with PCP. Shet was intubated for about two weeks, after that she was started on anti retrovirals. Her intial counts were CD4 of twelve and a viral load of 150,000. Her VL has dropped to 60,000 but her CD4 is at twenty and does not appear to be responding. Any ideas of why? Or treatments? The doctors here don't have any ideas. They also don't see very many late stage AIDS patients. Thanks for all the help this website provides.
Ross Slotten, M.D.
Klein and Slotten Medical Associates
Private Practice in Family Medicine
With a special interest in HIV disease
I'm sorry to hear about your wife's situation. Certainly she should have had a better response to antiretroviral medications at this point--the drop in her viral load was not significant. She may have some underlying resistance to the medication, or she may not have taken it properly, or maybe she was not prescribed a potent combination of medications: you don't tell us what she was given. I'm not surprised about the CD4 count, however, even if she had an excellent response--that improvement may take months to notice.
You need somehow to take her to someone who specializes in this infection, if she can be moved. I'd try a university center, where there are infectious disease consultants. If you live not too far from a major metropolitan center (New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, for example), you can find a number of people with expertise in this disease.
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