HIV SYMTOMS: MONITORING OF THE CD4
AIDS is defined in an HIV-positive person as a syndrome comprising various clinical conditions, a drop of the CD4 count to below 200, or both criteria.
A person with AIDS is usually monitored by measuring the level of his or her CD4 cells. A healthy person typically has a count of more than 500 cells; as this number declines, the body becomes vulnerable to outside infections and also to malignancies.
Some infections are more likely to occur at certain times during; a person’s illness, depending on what the CD4 count is. The only symptoms that a person with a CD4 count greater than 500 may have are lymph node swelling and, for women, recurrent vaginal yeast infections. Many people in this category, however, experience no symptoms. When the CD4 count drops into the 200-500 range, infected persons are more likely to be vulnerable to pneumococcal pneumonia, pulmonary tuberculosis, herpes zoster (shingles), oral Candida (yeast) infection, cervical cancer, anemia, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among other diseases. Persons with CD4 counts that fall within the 100-200 range are more vulnerable to Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, AIDS dementia, and wasting syndrome (the inability to maim-tain a normal body weight).
And those with CD4 counts less than 50 may develop Mycobacterium avium complex infection, cryptosporidiosis, progressive multifocal leukencephalopathy, and primary central nervous system lymphoma.
Careful monitoring of the CD4 counts makes it possible to take prophylactic medications at the appropriate time to help protect against many of these infections or at least delay their onset.
Medications to treat the HIV infection and keep the immune system functioning can help protect against these infections for some time.
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