HIV-positive person is functioning.

They are the best indicator of how well the immune system of an HIV-positive person is functioning. If the first CD4 cell count is greater than 600 per microliter of blood, the test should be repeated every 6 months. When the count begins to decrease, more frequent counts will be necessary. Another test, the viral load test, measures the amount of HIV in your blood. Levels above 10,000 viral copies per milliliter of blood are considered high and usually require prompt treatment. Vision problems are often an early indicator of opportunistic infection in HIV-positive individuals. Tell your health care professional promptly about any eye symptoms, especially persistent blurry vision or partial loss of vision. Getting care in an office or clinic that uses the case management concept of care is perhaps the most important aspect of your treatment. This approach emphasizes team care coordinated by a case manager. The case manager helps you communicate with all professionals who are providing your care. Other advantages include up-to-date medical care will be available to you, treatment of both medical and social aspects of your illness will be brought together, and you will have help in locating resources (medical, social, financial). The full effects of AIDS may not appear until 5 to 10 years after you are first infected with the virus. Although AIDS is a fatal disease, life expectancy has increased as new treatments continue to be developed. To take care of your self, you should ask any new sexual partner about his or her sexual history. Homosexual and bisexual men should be careful to practice safe sex, use condoms, and seek HIV testing. If you are in a high-risk group but have not tested positively for HIV, see your health care professional regularly. He or she will examine you for signs of HIV-associated infections and may recommend testing your blood regularly to screen for HIV infection. If you are HIV positive discuss your treatment with your health care professional. See your health care professional on a regular schedule to keep up to date on new treatments available, and call or see your health care professional when you have new or persistent symptoms or whenever you notice a change in body function that concerns you. If you are HIV positive, you should practice safe sex, avoid sharing sexual secretions and blood in any way, ask sexual partners to be tested for the presence of HIV, and tell your health care professionals that you are HIV positive. In addition: do not share needles for drug use, tattooing, or body piercing, try to avoid becoming pregnant, and do not donate blood, plasma, semen, or body parts. Research continues to increase knowledge of the human immunodeficiency virus. As a result, recommended treatments for infection with the virus change often. Keeping up with these changes can be difficult and frustrating. Two ways you can seek up-to-date information and care are by obtaining health care from a case management model facility and following the recommended appointment schedule and by contacting the national or state AIDS Hotline with specific questions or to find other resources. For more information on risk factors or HIV testing, contact your health care professional or the National AIDS Hotline at 1-800-342-AIDS (24 hours, 7 days a week). Hotline numbers are also available for Spanish-speaking persons at 1-800-344-7432 (8 a.m. to 2 a.m., EST, 7 days a week), and for the hearing impaired at TDD 1-800-243-7889 (10 a.m. to 10 p.m., EST, Monday through Friday). These hotlines are provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Developed by Phyllis G. Cooper, R.N., M.N., and Clinical Reference Systems. Copyright 1999 Clinical Reference Systems.