I need help helping a good friend. My friend is like a brother to me, and I love him like family.

My friend Scott's little brother, John tested positive for HIV. John is disabled and on medicare. During an annual physical he had bloodwork done, and was informed that he tested positive for HIV. He has had this same bloodwork done in his previous annual physicals, and this is the first time he's tested positive.
I'm trying to help them understand all of this. I know there are false positives, and they are doing a more accurate test to confirm the first positive test. I also know that an HIV diagnosis is not a death sentence like it used to be in the 80's and 90's.

Can HIV lay dormant for 10+ years? According to John he hasn't participated in any risky behaviour in that long. In his case the risky behavior was skanky women. As far as Scott and I know, John never did IV drugs, just bad judgement in women.

What can you tell me about the testing process, and what we should be aware of?

What questions should we be asking and what research would you recommend we do/read to help alleviate our fears?

Basically, tell us anything you think might help. I will share this thread with Scott and John.

I will answer any questions that I can.

Thank you

There is a lot of information about HIV on the Internet, but a quick search indicates that very low levels of infection cannot be detected with (most?) tests. After a period of latency (one article mentions up to ten years), though, the virus load increases and may become detectable.

Also, however, other articles state that a first positive test may not be accurate. Best wishes for your friend’s brother. Today’s treatments to prevent HIV infections from developing into AIDS seem to be pretty effective.

I remember being in a statistics class where they were talking about manipulating data and the example used was the number of HIV positive people and your risk factor.

What it boiled down to is if you lived a risky lifestyle and lived in an are with a high HIV population, your chances of the test being a false positive goes way down. If you live in an area without a large HIV population and you don't live a risky lifestyle, the chances of it being a false positive is almost higher than the chances of it being HIV.

That's from memory a long long time ago but that was the general understanding.

So hopefully it's a false positive.

Tests like this are designed to give more false positives than false negatives because positives are always double checked and are easier mistakes to correct. False negatives are much harder to catch.

The first HIV test is what we call a screening test.
If it comes back negative, you're home free. Nothing else needs done.
If it comes back positive (in your friend's case), then they will proceed with what we call the confirmation test.

If the confirmation test comes back negative, then you are home free, meaning the screening test gave you a false positive in the first place.
But, if the confirmation test comes back positive, then you are true positive (i.e, you are truly HIV positive).

quote:

According to John he hasn't participated in any risky behaviour in that long. In his case the risky behavior was skanky women. As far as Scott and I know, John never did IV drugs, just bad judgement in women.

Man, I hate to say it, but the dictionary tells me a skanky woman is a sexually promiscuous one, and that is a huge risk there.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
Man, I hate to say it, but the dictionary tells me a skanky woman is a sexually promiscuous one, and that is a huge risk there.

Believe it or not the risk is still extremely low unless anal sex is involved. Skank might equal that but I don’t know.

I know it’s anecdotal but Magic Johnson’s wife and Paul Glacier never got it despite years of sex with their hiv infected spouses.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
The first HIV test is what we call a screening test.
If it comes back negative, you're home free. Nothing else needs done.
If it comes back positive (in your friend's case), then they will proceed with what we call the confirmation test.

If the confirmation test comes back negative, then you are home free, meaning the screening test gave you a false positive in the first place.
But, if the confirmation test comes back positive, then you are true positive (i.e, you are truly HIV positive).

12131 Question is the second test different than the first?

If I recall from college biology class, the hetero female to hetero male infection rate with no IV or other high risk behaviors is quite low. I would still avoid dirty women...

HIV can and does lay dormant for 10 years in many cases.

The normal screening test is a blood test called an ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immuno-sorbent Assay), which detects circulating antibodies to HIV in the patient's blood. The ELISA is normally confirmed if positive by use of another immune based assay called a Western Blot, which also looks for specific antibodies.

When both ELISA and Western Blot come up positive, they can be further confirmed by molecular genetic testing, RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase PCR) which measure the viral load by detection of HIV RNA. HIV is a RNA based lentivirus.

If a patient is confirmed HIV positive, they should work closely with the doctor to receive HAART (High Efficiency Anti-Retroviral Therapy) therapy, which employs a cocktail of different anti-viral drugs together to reduce and control the viral load. The best HIV treatments target multiple viral pathways due to HIV's very high mutation rate (1 mutation per replication).

HIV patients should also have their immune cells monitored to stay on top of the effects of the infection. When HIV is not treated and controlled, it can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) where the patient develops many diseases and infections due to lack of a functional immune system.

The key to HIV treatment is confirmed diagnosis and monitoring. Once the infection is confirmed it can be controlled if the treatment is followed strictly.

Encourage him to have all the confirmatory testing and work closely with his physician for the best treatment and control of the disease.

Best regards,

Mike (Molecular Immunologist/Molecular Biologist)

I would just add that the names in your original post are entirely unnecessary and should be edited out. Land O Lakes aint that big.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I would just add that the names in your original post are entirely unnecessary and should be edited out. Land O Lakes aint that big.

Thanks but the names are fictitious. I only look stoopid.

quote:

Originally posted by comet24:

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
The first HIV test is what we call a screening test.
If it comes back negative, you're home free. Nothing else needs done.
If it comes back positive (in your friend's case), then they will proceed with what we call the confirmation test.

If the confirmation test comes back negative, then you are home free, meaning the screening test gave you a false positive in the first place.
But, if the confirmation test comes back positive, then you are true positive (i.e, you are truly HIV positive).

12131 Question is the second test different than the first?

Yes- the confirmation test was called a Western Blot and nearly 100% accurate...also very expensive to perform. I do not know the current technology for confirmation.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

According to John he hasn't participated in any risky behaviour in that long. In his case the risky behavior was skanky women. As far as Scott and I know, John never did IV drugs, just bad judgement in women.

Man, I hate to say it, but the dictionary tells me a skanky woman is a sexually promiscuous one, and that is a huge risk there.

So what are the chances of a man contracting HIV from a woman through sex compared to vice versa?

ETA:

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
If I recall from college biology class, the hetero female to hetero male infection rate with no IV or other high risk behaviors is quite low. I would still avoid dirty women...

That's what I had thought. But yes, probably best to avoid trashy trim.

Is it possible that the HIV test was added on to this year's physical?

I do not believe that there is any recommendation to test more than once in anyone that is considered to be "low risk" or does not regularly request to be screened.

Some times/ some insurances there is a "once in a life time" recommendation for screening for HIV, similar to that of testing for Hep C for individuals that were born between 1945-1965

quote:

Originally posted by jjkroll32:
Is it possible that the HIV test was added on to this year's physical?

I do not believe that there is any recommendation to test more than once in anyone that is considered to be "low risk" or does not regularly request to be screened.

Some times/ some insurances there is a "once in a life time" recommendation for screening for HIV, similar to that of testing for Hep C for individuals that were born between 1945-1965

From my understanding the perform this test everytime they do bloodwork. Being John is disabled and lower income he has medicare/medicaid and they test frequently.

THank you for all the reples so far. Keep the answers coming. They are truly appreciated.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

According to John he hasn't participated in any risky behaviour in that long. In his case the risky behavior was skanky women. As far as Scott and I know, John never did IV drugs, just bad judgement in women.

Man, I hate to say it, but the dictionary tells me a skanky woman is a sexually promiscuous one, and that is a huge risk there.

So what are the chances of a man contracting HIV from a woman through sex compared to vice versa?

ETA:

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
If I recall from college biology class, the hetero female to hetero male infection rate with no IV or other high risk behaviors is quite low. I would still avoid dirty women...

That's what I had thought. But yes, probably best to avoid trashy trim.

Yeah, sure, low, but if you f*** around with others who have f*** others, your risk is up significantly. Not at the IVD user level risk, but it ain't at the monogamous level, either. That is my point.

Sorry that your having to deal with this. I would say reach out to Broward Health Department. Fort Lauderdale has a shockingly high HIV/AIDS rate and they have a ton of services and information which may be of assistance.

http://broward.floridahealth.g.../hiv-aids/index.html

Best of luck
Tim