HIV/AIDS Are Things Really as Bad as They Seem? Part One

We live in a time when HIV/AIDS is taken for granted and many of us don't even think about it. It is just a fact of life. It affects those people that choose to live a lifestyle that is less than ideal. Or make choices that put them in jeopardy. That's their problem, not ours. Right?...Wrong.

We live in a world that HIV/AIDS is very sadly a common fact of life

HIV/AIDS is a fact of life. It is a huge global pandemic and the numbers grow every hour. Many many innocent people are affected each day. By innocent I am talking about those people that are not living an alternative or immoral lifestyle and making choices that put them in jeopardy. I am talking about people that through no fault of their own have contracted HIV and now they have to deal with it.

What about the healthcare worker that is accidentally infected while caring for an HIV/AIDS patient. Or the person that was in a horrible trauma and had to receive a blood transfusion and the blood was tainted. (Yes this happens, even in our modern medicine world of expertise). Or the innocent baby that is born with HIV due to it's mother's being infected.

It is not only questionable lifestyle choices that are at risk, innocent people are infected with HIV every day

And the list could go on and on. You don't have to be homosexual or an IV drug abuser, which are the stereotypical people for having HIV or AIDS. Anyone walking on this earth could become infected.

There are some very strange ideas out there about HIV/AIDS. And I am hoping to clear them up and give you some hope as to what might happen if someone you love becomes HIV infected.

HIV is no longer a death sentence. Some people can die of old age before HIV would kill them. But you have to smart about it. Let's get started.

Having HIV is no longer a death sentence

Having HIV does not automatically mean you also have AIDS. HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that destroys your immune cells, the CD4 type, that help fight diseases. AIDS (Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is not diagnosed until you have had infections that involve your CD4 immune cells and the cell count drops below 200. You must be taking the right medications to protect your CD4 infection fighting cells in order to divert conversion from HIV to AIDS

Remember back in the day when people were afraid of even casual contact with someone having HIV/AIDS? In fact studies were done to show what the lack of human contact was doing to these individuals. Well as difficult as it may be to believe people today in 2010 still think this way.

You CAN NOT acquire HIV from casual contact

The fact is you CAN NOT acquire HIV from casual contact, such as hugging someone or sharing a bath towel or drinking from the same glass. It is even rare to get HIV from a blood transfusion although it does happen more than medical community would like to admit. Some common ways for getting HIV is through unprotected sex, sharing needles or getting tattoos from equipment that is unsterilized. Another tragic way is for a marriage mate to be unfaithful by having unprotected sex and then bringing the disease home to the unsuspecting mate.

The first part of this article helped to clear up some erroneous thinking about HIV/AIDS. In part two of this article we will discuss more closely some facts about treatment and lifestyle choices that will help protect you if you are HIV infected.

Source:

WebMD

HIV and AIDS Health Center

CDC