Living with HIV: stress and side effects

Masonia Traylor was 23 years old when she was diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2010.

“The first two weeks, I cried every day,” Traylor says. “I was reflecting on my whole life at 23, and I felt really disappointed in myself; I questioned many of the decisions I made [had] made.”

While Traylor was figuring it out, he discovered that he was pregnant 2 weeks after her HIV diagnosis. More than a decade later, Traylor’s daughter is in good health. But Traylor clearly remembers the tremendous amount of pressure and stress she felt.

A HIV diagnosis life is changing. Once you get it, there is no effective cure. But with the right kind of medical treatment, you can keep the virus count in your blood low and live a long and healthy life without the risk of infecting others.

While medical advances have greatly improved life expectancy, stigma and stress that stems from an HIV diagnosis can still affect your quality of life.

“This [HIV] it affects many, many things: your dynamics with your friends, your family, your workplace, and it leads to a great deal of mental and emotional stress,” says Alan Taege, MD, an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Negative attitudes against HIV they are mostly based on misinformation about how the infection spreads. Many think that it affects only certain groups of people. They often signal gender, sexual orientationgender identity, race or ethnicity, drug use or sex work as cause of HIV spread. These attitudes can cause people with HIV to internalize the stigma and cause them stress. This “self-stigma” can make them afraid to tell their loved ones about their HIV status.

Traylor says he felt that way. “I saw it as a punishment at first,” she says.

The doctors tried to reassure her that with proper and timely medical attention, she would be fine. But Traylor says it took her about a year to feel ready to share her HIV status. And it took her almost 6 years to feel that she was “going to be okay”.

“This is because he wasn’t just physically sick,” says Traylor. “He was operating from a broken spirit.”

With HIV, too much stress can harm your overall health, even if treatment keeps the infection under control.

“When the body is under a significant amount of stress, it can lead to inflammationthat it can trigger a whole host of cascades in the body that, simply put, make other chronic diseases more likely or worse,” says Jonathan Colasanti, MD, associate medical director of the Infectious Diseases Program at Grady Health System in Atlanta.

While many find an HIV diagnosis to be a stressful time in their lives, some handle it better, especially if they have a good support system. But Taege says it’s important to assess his patients’ mental state early on to help them deal with stressors.

When she meets someone newly diagnosed with HIV, she says she tries to find out what they know about the disease and how well they are handling the diagnosis.

“Us [may] they need assistance not only from our social workers, but also from specific counselors and psychiatrists, because many of these people need that kind of help,” says Taege.

Treatment for HIV involves a medicine called antiretroviral therapy (ART), which can check the amount of HIV in your blood or your viral load. Usually, people with HIV can see results within 6 months of starting the medication. The amount of HIV can drop low enough to become “undetectable” or untraceable in blood tests. This means that your viral load is low enough to keep you healthy and not transmit HIV to other people.

But you have to take your medicine as prescribed by your doctor. If you miss doses, you can make the virus in your body resistant to your medicine and no longer work. The virus can then start to multiply and attack your immune system. This will increase your chances of developing AIDS. It also means that you can pass it on to others.

At the moment, most of the available medicines come in the form of daily pills that you take once or twice a day by mouth. Although newer medications have greatly reduced side effects for many people, it is still possible to have side effects, including digestive problems, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and others.

While the side effects can act as a stressor, Colasanti says the act of swallowing a pill every day can become an annoying reminder for some and affect their daily lives.

“They are living with this disease which, as I mentioned, is still quite stigmatized. And so, as much as they want to just live their life, that daily pill reminder can be a very difficult reminder that won’t allow them to just forget about her illness and live her life,” says Colasanti.

While your medications and your body work hard to keep your viral load suppressed, you will inevitably experience some form of fatigue, stress, or pain in your everyday life. But there are things you can do to control your symptoms and stay in the best possible health.

Can:

Plan ahead. It is very important that you do not skip your medications. If you have a busy schedule, be sure to plan and pack your pills to take with you.

Get mental health support. If you are feeling depressed or stressed, tell your health care team. They can help direct you to the mental health experts like therapists or psychiatrists who can help you deal with any emotional issues you may be facing.

“For me, having mental health therapy is definitely the most important thing,” says Traylor. He can also find a friend or family member to talk about her feelings.

Stop smoking and substance abuse. If you smoke or take drugs, it can prevent your treatment from working properly. As for alcohol, if you’re drinking too much or need to quit for health reasons (such as if you have liver disease), your doctor can help you find resources to cut down or quit.

Through her HIV activism, Traylor was able to meet other people living with HIV long-term, especially other older black women, who were able to give her hope and the ability to envision her own life with HIV long-term.

Practice self care. Find time to take care of yourself. Eating well and getting plenty of rest can be a form of therapy. Traylor says self-care can be as simple as doing frequent nail trimming to pamper yourself or making time to listen to her favorite music. music.

Know your doctor. Taege says that in order to successfully navigate your HIV journey it is very important to have a strong relationship with your doctor first.

“You have to feel comfortable with the care provider you choose. If you feel like I’m not the right person, tell me and I’ll find someone for you, because if you don’t have a good, solid working relationship with your care providers, it won’t work for you,” says Taege. .

Colasanti agrees that people should feel free to express their concerns to their doctors. For him, as a doctor, it can be easy over time to view HIV as a long-term treatable condition as diabetes either hypertension that can simply be managed with medication.

“It’s very easy for me to say as a doctor who has seen treatment evolve and where we are now compared to where we were 2 decades ago. But that’s just gibberish for someone who’s really living and struggling in the moment. So I think it’s important to have that conversation with your HIV provider to say, ‘I’m struggling and I need help.’