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Being HIV Positive
What happens if someone is HIV-positive?
A person infected by HIV does not experience any symptoms soon after being infected. The person infected may not know they are infected as the virus will multiply in the body for weeks or months before the immune system begins responding. During this time, the infected person can easily spread the virus. Common symptoms of an infected person when symptoms begin manifesting are mostly flu-like. Some people get fever, headache, sore muscles and joints, stomach ache, swollen lymph glands, or a skin rash for one or two weeks. Most people mistake these symptoms for flu. After the first flu-like symptoms, some people with HIV stay healthy for ten years or longer. But during this time, HIV is ravaging the infected person's immune system.
When a person's immune system responds, it starts to make antibodies. When this happens, the person will test positive for HIV.
The most common way to measure the damage to the immune system is to count the CD4+ cells. These cells, also called "T-helper" cells, are an important part of the immune system. The range of these cells in healthy people is between 500 and 1,500 CD4+ cells in a milliliter of blood. Without treatment, the CD4+ cell count in an infected person will most likely go down. The person begins to exhibit signs of HIV disease like fevers, night sweats, diarrhea, or swollen lymph nodes. If someone has the HIV disease, these problems will last more than a few days, and probably continue for several weeks.
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