So, we had a pretty uneventful day today at the hospital and so me and the docs talk time was greatly increased. We got to talking about some things he has seen amongst HIV+ ppl and after a long discussion and some sadness I felt for those infected I decided to post some of these things here..
1) Normally those that have swollen nodes during the HIV incubation period, have them in the absence of any other symptom, basically this means its betetr to be sick along with your swollen nodes then to just repeatedly have them, another interesting thing is that the ppl who do have swollen glands, wax and wane with them from the beginning of there ARS period, they do not get them out of nowhere a few yeard down the line

2)Most symptoms of HIV do not appear until after the 8-10 year period, therefore the sunus infections, mout sores, armpit soreness and muscle aches that ppl associate with having been infected are probably due to soemthing else: stress perhaps?

3)Mononucleosis (EBV, kissing dieases) does show many of the same symptoms that ARS seems to have, however, Mono last significantly longer and actually will always be in a person it is just dormant. The symptoms associated with Mono can last anywhere form a few weeks to a few years and are often triggers for some other auto immune disease such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, etc.... (these disease are also associated with making someone tired, have flu like symptoms, swollen glands and of course muscle aches)

4) testing after one possible exposure is recommended but at teh time of counseling it is usually made pretty clear that your chances of testing positive are very miniscule exspeically in the absence of ARS symptoms, blood during the exposure, sex with an at risk person and Anal sex. however even with these risks present the chance is still much slimmer then those considered high risk.

5) for all you hetero's worried. Vaginal secretions are a strong barrier against infection as is a circumsized male penis, why? well because most times the penetrator of sex is at the least possible risk of having anyhting enter his body, the small opening of the penis is extremely difficult to be a passageway for the virus. Even in homosexuals the penetrator is unlikely to become infected after a one time exposure just because the passageway is pretty minut.

6) As for the presense of menstrual blood. most of the time menstrual blood is less of blood and more of tissue (remember from like 6th grade girls!) and the blood that is present is often already dead, therefore the white cells are dying along with it, basically this does not really propose much more of a risk then its absence unless the male is bleeding in some way too.

7) unfortunately this disease has discrimatory characteristics and is much more prevalent in the black and latino communiteies then in the caucasion ones, in my city alone 74% of HIV/AIDS patients were black and 17% were latino, a meer 8.5% were white and a very small percentage were of other ethnic backgrounds.I do live in a large U.S. city and the hosp I work in happenes to be in a homosexual community, most of our patients are Gay, but not just gay, they are gay and black, we have had just 4 women in the hospital in the past 6 months who were HIV + 2 of them were black and IV drug users and the other two were latino and partners of Iv drug users and bi sexuals these two women were the only women in the past 6 months to have HIv and be pregnant and only one of them delievered an HIV+ baby. This baby was our 10th baby born + and all of the babies born + were african or latino. I should note that we have the most deliveries in the city.

I AM SO DISGUSTED WITH ALL OF AMERICA'S STATISTICS. THESE STATISTICS CONTINUOUSLY PAINT MINORITIES AS ALL AROUND "HARMFUL" IN ALL AREAS INCLUDING CRIME/PARENTHOOD/....AND NOW THE HIV VIRUS. IT IS AMAZING THAT THESE "SO CALLED STATISTICS" ACTUALLY SUGGEST THAT UNPROTECTED HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVITY IS RAMPANT AMONG ONLY BLACKS.IM JUST SO SICKENED AND SADDENED BY ALL OF THESE "FACTS", ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT HOMOSEXUALITY WAS NOT EVEN PRESENT IN MINORITIY COMMUNITIES UNTIL RECENTLY.IF...AND MEAN IF THESE FACTS ARE ACCURATE, THEN THIS SHOULD INDEED PROVE THAT THIS VIRUS WAS CREATED BY OUR RACIST GOVERNMENTAL SCIENTIST WHO GEARED THE DISEASE TO BE ESPECIALLY DETREMENTAL TO THE GENETIC MAKE UP OF BLACKS. THAT IS THE ONLY EXPLAINATION..NOT THE PRETENSE OF "LOOSE MORALS".

i was in no way trying to be a racist, i was just stating a fact. Yes, I am sorry if it upsets ppl of color that they are in the majority when it comes to the AIDS crisis. I sure as hell think there is a great possibility that AIDS could have been created by the goverment, a disease that kills off your bodys defense against other disease seems a lil to perfect to me to have been natural. Think about it, its like the immoral disease, how is it transmitted in the majority? from doing things that the conservatists would consider immoral. As far as homosexuality being new in the black community, I beg to differ, most of our AIDS patients are gay and black. This is not a new occurence it has been that way since the mid 80's. Magic Johnson was not a straight man despite what the media trys to say. I hate that whole but hes married.... Who cares my mom and dad were married too, and dont forget Rock Hudson, he was married as well, didnt change the fact that he was homosexual. Fine call me a racist just because I pointed out soemthing that is widly known. AIDS in africa is also not entirely heterosexual, who determines mode of transmission anyway. If I had AIDS and got it from shooting up, I sure as hell wouldnt say I got it in this fashion, who wouldnt say it was from heterosexual sex if they could do so? It is said that 90% of AIDS is hetersexually transmitted, what are the other risk factors though? Im sure heterosexual sex is not the only one in 100% of cases. Bottom line if it was transmitted so easily in this manner everyone and there mother would have gotten it by now, look at the statistics for ghonnoreah, clamydia, etc... they by far outnumber the AIDS cases. These disease also seem to be mroe prevalent in the minorities of America. Why? I cant answer that, but I would say it has alot to do with their quality of living, this is not to say that all African Americans are living unoppurtunistic lives, they are just given less oppurtunity because of racist hick caucasions who think the color of skin should determine the intelligence and worth of a person. There are a hell of alot of horrible, disguisting excuses for a human being caucasions out there too. Oh and one other thing, I hate the stigma behind americas youth and the spread of STD's and AIDs. We are not the majority of the AIDs cases: 30-40 yearolds are and this rings the same for HIV. Maybe worldwide the statistics are centerd at us, but not in the U.S. Dont forget that these disease broke when most of us werent even born, with the exception of AIDS and then we were just babys. The swingers in the 70's and the drug users are the ones that should carry the blame, not the teenagers. I myself am 21 and I know for sure that I am loked down upon just because I am a mother to a 4 yearold, please, there are way worse things in life then being a teenage parents. Statistics might very well not account for anything, afetr all my I.Q. is far more superior than many and my college G.P.A. is excellent, according to statistics, I should have dropped out of highschool and got on welfare. I did neither of these things. So if the same goes for AIDS in the black community, I am sure that many blacks have never even engaged in the kind of behavior that warrants infection and yet the stigma remains, this very fact is why this country should live up to being individualistic and stop catagorizing ppl based on meaningless studys. I just hope that the responder was not targeting his anger at me. Target it at the great U.S.A.

Babyshan

I have a question about the lymph nodes. I had a swollen lymph node under my chin. It was not swollen but the more I rubbed it, then it finally swelled. I also can feel lymph nodes in my neck. They are not painful, I can just feel them. My doc said it was nothing to worry about. I took an HIV test about 4 1/2 months after my exposure. I was ok with this until I started reading about the swollen lymph nodes. What do you think?

AIDS peaked in 1993, why? Not because of any increase in unprotected sexual activity, but simple because the CDC changed the definition of what AIDS is.

Before 1993, in order to get an AIDS diagnosis, one had to have an Opportunistic Infection, or (OI).

In 1993, the CDC changed the definition to include healthy people with low T-cells. So overnight the AIDS population more than doubled! What is even more interesting is that the CDC has stopped publishing which new AIDS patients are those with only low T-cells and no OIs.

Interesting isn't it?

Does anyone care?

first of all AIDS peaked in 93 because of the 8-10 year period of time in which it takes for the disease to become active, and to my question asker. Please do not get all paranoid about lymph nodes, lymph nodes swell for so many reasons, they swelled in ppl before the onset of the AIDS crisis, and they will swell long after the AIDs crisis is ended. Some ppl have more sensitive lymph systems then others and so theres swell more often, your nodes could have swelled before and you just became aware of them because of your new AIDS fear. I myself had never expirienced swollen lymph nodes as far as I could remember. My b/f's lil brother came down with severely swollen nodes which lasted for months, after going to the doc he thought he may have contacted Hep C from a tatoo needle and his very ignorant and discrimatory doctor said Hep C? what about HIV!! He of course tested negative for the virus but, I know that I got the flu not to long after this and then all of a sudden I had swollen lymph nodes even after I began to feel well again and so voila! I started thinking I had HIV. If you tested at 4 months and you are negative then you are negative. My mom tested once after my dad was diagnosed and then went and gave blood a year later, He has been dead alomost 10 years to the day and my mom, despite having Asthma is in very good health. I am also.

i have a question for you... how are vaginal secretions a barrier?

Everybody is always complaining about how racist the statistics are. Okay let's ignore that statistics and lie to minorities about that facts because we might offend them. Yeah, we will spare their feelings while they die of AIDS related illnesses. Get a grip, facts are facts, people in high risk minority groups need to be careful. That is not a racist statement. Lying to minorities or high risk groups about their risk level is racist.

thank you for your support to the last poster, vaginal secretions are a barrier because they are made to fend off disease, this very fact makes them a barrier. They also do not contain many white blood cells, which is this particular virus's drug of choice