HIV Can Be Manageable

HIV can be manageable
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/health-and-nutrition/23651-hiv-can-be-manageable.html
by Manoj Jain
TEN years ago, an intelligent, reserved software engineer — a woman with the complexion of Halle Berry and the physique of a marathoner — came to my infectious-disease clinic, accompanied by her fiance. They’d been referred to me a few weeks after a rash and pneumonia prompted a clinic doctor to test the woman for HIV. The test came back positive. Her fiance, tested later, was HIV-negative.
Choosing my words carefully, I answered their questions about their future relationship, emphasizing condom use as well as blood and body fluid precautions. They married as scheduled, and I placed her on a regimen of four medications: eight pills daily, taken at three different times throughout the day. As time went by, her health and immune system improved.
A few years after her diagnosis, my patient told me that she and her husband wanted to have a child. Concerned about the risk of transmitting HIV to her husband if they stopped using condoms, I said I would refer her to an in vitro fertilization clinic. But before I could do that, my patient informed me that she was pregnant.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651
A nearby academic medical center delivered her son by Caesarean section, using all precautions to protect the baby from infection. And it worked: He was healthy and HIV-negative. My patient did not breast-feed — again, to avoid transmission risks — and managed well as a new mother. Soon she went back to work and even got a promotion, to software manager. Some years later, she delivered a second son, also by C-section, also HIV-negative.
Her husband regularly took HIV tests; all were negative. (Not every unprotected sexual encounter results in infection, but it’s a kind of Russian roulette I don’t recommend.)
Over the years, my patient tolerated the usual side effects of the HIV medication: nausea, diarrhea and a rash. Her insurance covered the cost, so for a long time the most troublesome part was the pill burden and the regimented schedule.
Since only her parents and husband knew of her HIV status, carrying pills to work or to a dinner party was awkward. Then, several years ago she switched to Atripla, which combines three medications in one pill, taken once a day. Life became easier.
Her story is a remarkable chronicle of the advance of medicine and strong evidence of the importance of testing. Not only can my patient expect to live a relatively long and productive life, she can do it with the love and support of a healthy husband and children. None of this would have been possible without early detection .
In the early years of HIV, I recall feeling helpless as my patients’ bodies succumbed to the relentless attacks by the virus. As their immune systems disintegrated, common bacteria, parasites or tuberculosis organisms would infect their lungs or a usually innocuous fungus would invade the deep tissues of their brains, and eventually they died.
But in the mid-1990s, researchers developed HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) medicines that in various ways arrest the growth of the virus, reducing it to “undetectable levels.” Over the past decade and a half, for many in the developed world, HIV has become more like a chronic disease instead of a death sentence. — By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

 
Do share your immediate thoughts or reactions on this issue? We value your views! Login Now! or Sign Up Today! to share your views with us.. Gurfateh!

Sainty ji

This type of article is very important to have on record in the Forum.

Sat shri akal,

Is there any account of Sikhs suffering from AIDS ?

Sat shri akal,
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651
The fool is still waiting for someone to reply.

You can Google "incidence of HIV Sikhs" and find some information. Check for yourself.

My intuitive reaction is that there are not good statistics in India on the question that you raise. Religion is not often used to predict HIV incidence. And so the statistics are reported by geographical region and ethnic group. EG, there are 2000 families that are HIV positive in Amritsar but that does not mean they are Sikhs. Truck drivers from Punjab are expected to be at increased risk of contracting HIV in the future, and many Punjab truck drivers are Sikhs. But that is projection only. You may not get an answer.

Some links but not very defnitive.

Ethical Issues in Six Religious ... - Google Book Search
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

Spread of HIV-1 infection in Punjab & Chandigarh, India.


http://www.worldsikhnews.com/5%20Dec...20Punjabis.htm
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

Sexually transmitted disease has increased in the United States from around 5 in 1955, to many today. This is largely due to the discarding of Judeo-Christian morality which rebellion came full force around the so called sexual revolution when accepted standards of morality were challenged and then discarded by many young people.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

The Judeo-Christian ethic says that sexual intercourse outside marriage is fornication between unmarried people and adultery between married people who are not chaste but promiscuous. Jesus had an even higher standard when he said, "Whoever looks on another man's wife to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart." These are all sins. And in the New Testament there are verses that say all who do these things will doom themselves to hell, if they do not repent.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

Without the sexual license we have in many quarters today, there would not have been the HIV pandemic. The Apostle Paul said that every man should contain his own vessel (reserve sexual relationships with his wife alone.) in holiness.

Ji -- Try to formulate responses that are relevant to the thread topics. Your response is very close to proselytizing a fundamentalist Christian point of view. The thread is not about sin and punishment. It is about medical management of a disease. Not everyone with HIV has taken the path of "fornication" and "adultery." HIV is transmitted in several ways -- sexual contact is just one way. Thank you, aad0002

All religions teach morality and ethics, the problem is this that some think that their pool is an ocean

Forum members,
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

You may find the web site of Dr. Manoj Jain very interesting. For a long time wholistic treatment of disease, including spirituality along with science, has interested me. Dr. Manoj Jain's article on the management of HIV is quoted in the first post of this thread.

He has a fascinating web site, and it works together very nicely with the interest of many SPN members in Health and Nutrition from a wholistic point of view. So maybe it also is of interest to you.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

Here is the link

Dr. Manoj Jain : Medicine : Spirituality : Cook Books : Writing :

HIV vs AIDS.

You can have HIV and not develop AIDs provided that the virion stays latent. over 1 million americans may test HIV positive and not develop any symptoms of AIDS for rather prolonged periods of time. AIDS is a syndrome not a infectious disease. Pathogenicity (aka virulence) of the HIV-1 virus is still being debated by many.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651

a vaccine is close but the virus (HIV-1) is extremely adaptable and the sucker's virion protein capsids are EXTRODINARILY variable so vaccine production is difficult. HIV-1 envelope proteins can differ in more than 30% of their amino acids, showing great complexity. To contend with the diversity, country-specific vaccines are being considered.

anti-retroviral drugs are also improving, hard to keep up with them. They target multiple parts or processes of virion replication and are usually cocktails of various drugs that inhibit different parts of the virion replication process.

cocktail consists of;
Fusion inhibitors
Reverse transcriptase inhibitors
protease inhibitors, etc.

Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23651
the side-effects to these drugs are significant and people should be cautious...quality of life could deteriorate...and people should know that it is not a cure but a prolongment of the inevitable. (the virus integrates into cellular DNA...it literally becomes a part of our genetic makeup). Anti-retroviral drugs slow the destruction of CD4+ T cells by reducing the HIV viral load...pro-longing life of the patient, and with it, further transmission oppurtunities (the longer the carrier is alive the higher chances of further propagation). Which is why concentrating on HIV/AIDS prevention rather than treatment should be central for the good of all.

HIV tests; ELISA, Western Blots and IFA are fairly accurate (there validity was questioned in a Biomedical journal by a group of contraversial researchers called "the perth group" who published a denial of the existence of HIV in the journal 'Biotechnology' in 1993) ... later to be proven false and erroneous there still exists a group out there who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS.

HIV testing has improved but the newly developed self-Oral testing kits have been dissapointing with incidents of false positives relatively high.

Not to sound callous, but I believe that HIV is ultimately an evolutionary tenet. (A negative feedback response to large human population growth). I also think that it's origins were the result of human medical/social acitivity. The virus seems to be an evolutionary offshoot of SIV (Simian Immuno Virus). I think the HIV was propagated during the drive to eliminate Polio in Africa with tainted needles used with possibly tainted live attenuated polio vaccines. (humans trying to irradicate a disease caused SIV to evolve/mutate and become HIV).

The Origin of HIV and the First Cases of AIDS