HIV Support Group

WOW Tobias, that is great. I dunno what the answer is. I mean, I take vitamins and immune boosters everyday myself and up to now, I have been lucky. The last 4 plus years I have not needed to take meds and Now, I might have to begin...I dunno what the answer is for you but whatever you are doing, keep doing...It seems to be working great for you now...xo...~doll~

Tobias thats great. Keep it up. Personally i don't take any vitamins and my CD4 counts has always been 600 and above and undetectable. (never been on meds either) All i do is eat right (no junk food or fast food). I exercise every day for atleast 30 minutes. And i try to avoid stress as much as i can. And above all i do have enough sleep. :)

Whatever you are doing is working and you should just continue doing that.

I guess different things work for different people.

That is great news Tobias. 700 to 1200 CD4 count is the normal range. Anything above 400 is really pretty good. Most people don't experience any significant immune deficiency unless the count drops well below 200.

Yeah, but Dr. Duke, what CAUSES your CD4 count to rise or fall? Probably a dumb question, but I really wanna know...

Yea, I wanna know too! Or does nobody know?

The number one thing that can cause any test number to go up or down is simple inaccuracy in the test. No test is 100% accurate, if you repeat the same count on the same exact sample 10 times the numbers would be something like 456, 467, 444, 472, etc. Then if you took one blood sample from the right arm and one from the left arm at the same time, the left arm sample might average 453.5 out of ten tests and the right arm 450.7.

So don't get too excited about minor changes in the numbers. Some tests may be accurate to about 10, so 453 means somewhere between 443 and 463. Other tests, such as the viral load, are accurate to within a power to ten. So a viral load of 1,345 is significantly different from a viral load of 13,600 but not significanlty different from a viral load of 2,390. This is why viral load is often reported on a log scale. 3.0 is 1,000, 4.0 is 10,000, 5.0 is 100,000 viruses per milliliter, etc...

Secondly, for CD4 cells, they test the blood but many of the cells are in lymph nodes or the gut mucosa or other places. So the number in the blood stream can go up and down quote a bit in 24 hours even if the number of CD4 cells in the body remains constant.

Thirdly, white blood cells of all types, but especially CD8+ "killer T-cells" and antibody-producing B-cells, get stimulated to grow and divide rapidly to fight an infection. So if you have a cold or flu or some sort of bacterial infection you total white blood cell count will shoot up for a week or so while your immune system is fighting the infection. Some studies have shown that reporting the ratio of CD4 to CD8 cells is more indicative of overall health than reporting the number of either one. But most labs for HIV-infected people still tend to focus on the CD4 count.

So anyway, most of these numbers are not like measuring your weight or height. It's better to think of them as "ballpark estimates" and keep track of the general trend over time rather than get too excited about any one result or pair of results.

Thanks Dr.Duke. Your explanation was very helpful.

CONGRATZ, tobias! I just wanna say, I enjoy your posts, and I'm very happy to see you gaining ground! I'm putting my hands in the air RIGHT now, in a 'raising the roof' motion. I just got a weird look from another student in the computer lab. It was worth it.

~M@

That explanation was great! thanks! I hope one day we can find out how to get more cells so we can boost them when we need them, haha.

Thanks Matt! I always get people giving me weird looks in computer labs. Today was when I was laughing at this instead of revising...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDb...

Tobias.... a puking cat??? Hilarious.... but I'm livin' it right now. My FIV Poz cat is barfing all over the place. I was up at 2 in the mornin' wiping it up from my bathroom, hallway & the nursery.... ugh..... cut kitties, tho... :-)