Aging with HIV

“Nobody asked me when I was 20 what I wanted to be or what kind of life I wanted to have when I was 60, because I wasn’t expected to live,” he says. HIV attorney Vince Chrysostom.

Crisóstomo, now 60, found out he had HIV in 1989, two years after he was infected. “People associate a lot of loss with HIV and AIDS, particularly my generation,” he says. “I was lucky”.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, many people with HIV lived only 1 or 2 years after their diagnosis. But with new treatment and a better understanding of the virus, many people, like Crisóstomo, are living long and healthy lives. Today almost half of all people living with HIV in the United States they are older than 50 years.

Medicine for HIV has come a long way since the FDA first approved the use of antiretroviral therapies (ART) for this virus. Treatment used to include many pills, problem doses, food, and drug interactionsand other severe symptoms.

“At first, we were switching medications because of side effects,” says Janessa Broussard, vice president of medical affairs for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “But we’ve gotten to a point where we have agents who don’t have issues that would worry me about switching my patient to another option. The decisions we make today have to do with the preference of an individual.”

HIV treatment can still have side effects, but modern ART is much more manageable. Successful treatment routines have allowed the life expectancy of people with HIV to be comparable to that of people without the virus.

“Before we had the right therapy, HIV was, as people say, a death sentence,” says Broussard. That has changed. “It’s a whole different conversation that I have with my patients, which is wonderful. I can honestly say that this really won’t affect your life expectancy. You can still live a long, happy and healthy life.”

As people live longer lives with HIV, age-related health problems have become a new challenge. Although HIV treatments reduce the chances of AIDS-defining diseases, certain conditions not related to AIDS are more common in people who age with HIV. Some of these include:

People with HIV may also notice these conditions earlier in the aging process than their HIV-negative peers. The researchers don’t know exactly why this happens, but they think it has to do with changes in the immune system causing age-related complications to start sooner.

Aging and HIV are also related to chronic diseases. inflammationwhich could lead to many health conditions.

In addition, long-term ART could cause complications such as osteoporosis, an increased risk of fractureskidney and metabolic disordersliver disease, cardiovascular disease and Central Nervous System disorders But experts find it difficult to know whether ART causes these conditions directly or whether they are due to a combination of long-term ART and other factors.

A person’s genetics, lifestyle, the time from infection to ART initiation, and other medical obstacles may also affect the risk of these age-associated problems.

“With age, many people develop chronic diseases that require medications that also have side effects,” says Broussard. “It’s hard to say directly that long-term antiretrovirals cause a certain condition. They may have contributed to the development of certain conditions. But if you look at a risk/benefit perspective, antiretrovirals, even with the effects, are significantly better than the effect that HIV has on the body when it’s not controlled by therapy.”

It is important to start ART as soon as possible, even if you are diagnosed later in life. Also, there are many things you can do to live a long and healthy life with HIV:

Find a doctor that fits your needs. Your medical provider must understand the needs of an aging person with HIV. Your physical, mental and emotional requirements may be different from other people. It is important that your doctor is aware of these potential differences and is trained to provide you with the care you deserve.

See your doctor regularly. Ask your doctor how often you should have a routine medical checkup. they should try their urine and blood to see if anything has changed or if you have an undetected viral load, which means the virus is not having as much of an impact on your body. As with any other condition, it’s a good idea to monitor your health and let your doctor know if you notice any changes.

Make healthy lifestyle choices. You can reduce your risk of contracting age-related diseases by not of smokinglimiting alcohol and avoid recreational drugs.

eat well and exercise. keeping a Healthy weight it can also help you avoid health complications. Eat balanced meals and exercise regularly to maintain physical aptitude. Lifting weights it can also help your bones stay strong, which helps fight the side effects of osteoporosis.

Seek social support. Support groups and communities can help you talk about your experiences and connect with other people aging with HIV. You can find groups that meet online or in person. Additionally, talking with loved ones can help you express your feelings and allow them to understand your perspective.

maintenance mental health. His mental health it needs to change as you get older. It is important that you focus on your mental well-being in addition to your physical health. Older people with HIV are at increased risk of mental health and social isolation than seronegative people of the same age. This is due to stigma, loss of friends and loved ones, and the normal side effects of HIV, ART, and the aging process.

These days, Crisóstomo is working on his mentality. “I never planned a trip in my adult life a year in advance. I have never had goals, except to get through the day or the month. I’m trying to change that,” he says.

Like him, more people are aging with HIV and exploring a chapter of life they thought would never come. “People are able to have relationsto be loved, to have children biologically related to them,” says Broussard. “It is a stark contrast to the life that people living with HIV lived in the 1980s and 1990s.”