Antiretroviral therapy
Therapy function
Before starting we have to be clear: don’t exist anti-Hiv vaccines, in the current circumstances, neither sensational short-term discoveries can be assured, although medical research is doing reliable progresses. Hiv infection leads to Aids and, sooner or later, to death. For this reason the password is: protect yourself.
In western countries, however, the major part of patients survive for many years after the diagnosis thanks to the supply of antiretroviral therapy (Art), based on the assumption of medicines which suppress the virus replication. In the absence of this treatment the passage from the infection to Aids develops itself in a space of time which goes from nine to ten years and the middle rate of survival after that the disease is developed is of 9.2 months.
Today, in addiction, it is possible to prevent a great part of the opportunistic infections or heal them with success if promptly diagnosed. But often these infections go unnoticed because many doctors aren’t able to understand correctly its symptoms.
The best chances offered by the therapy expect combinations or “cocktails” composed by tre medicines at least, which belonged to two or more classes of antiretroviral agents and which work in the different phases of the virus replication process. The Hiv inhibitors medicines work on the reduction of free virus in blood (viral charge) and on the increase of lymphocytes CD4 number. These are, in fact, signals of viral low proliferation and of a better running of the immune system. In this way the cure extends the length of the asymptomatic period or relieves the disease symptoms.
The therapy is recommended in two cases: when the number of lymphocytes and the viral charge reaches determined limit values or suffers a sudden decline; when diseases associated to Hiv like the opportunistic ones reveal themselves.
Contraindications
The Hiv inhibitors medicines can present some unwelcome collateral effects. At the moment we doesn’t know all the eventual late consequences of the therapy, but there is something that is sure: antiretroviral regimes are often complex – it needs to take medicines several times a day – and the patient has to observe indefinitely (presumably for life), but above all with maximum vigour, otherwise it risks to develop a certain resistance to medicines. Without count that the cure is somewhat expensive, for this reason the major part of infected persons in the world can’t effort it.
The objective of Art is to improve the immunologic condition and stabilizes it for a long period, to reduce the onset of collateral effects. But it is not always, simple to hit it, neither following the therapeutic prescriptions. An important help can in that case arrive from the human factor. A remarkable collaborative spirit by the patient, the support of the surround where he lives, a good relationship with his family doctor: these are the elements which can result decisive for the therapy success. The scientific research must think to the rest, aiming to reduce the unwelcome collateral effects, to simplify the pharmacological regimes to increase the efficiency, to establish the optimum order of the different cures to contain the eventual resistance to medicines.
Problems apart, antiretroviral treatments, associated with instruments for the infection prevention which use the vulnerability provoked by Aids, play an important role in retarding the onset of complications associated to the illness. The therapy, started at the right moment, studied made to measure and correctly followed, can, in conclusion, enlarge a lot the patient life, improving quality too.
Alternative medicine
It has been test, since Aids made a breach in collective conscience, many forms of alternative medicine to cure its symptoms. In the first ten years of the epidemic, the unavailability of antiretroviral therapies persuaded many people infected by Aids to seek refuge in possible remedies of all kind: from acupuncture to massages, from homeopathy to autogenous training, passing from cures based on herbs or flowers, from shiatsu, from pranotherapy and..more over. It is a matter of instruments nowadays used as complementary therapies and able to produce some salutary effects like the stress reduction or relief from pain. None of them, however, turned out to be really effective in Hiv/Aids treatment and interest towards them became gradually lower, in proportion to the progresses registered in the conventional treatments field.
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