
How long can you live if you get HIV?
The average time from infection to death is eight to ten years. There is no generalized definitive period for which a person with HIV can live. In the case of an untreated HIV infection, the overall mortality rate is more than 90%. The average time from infection to death is eight to ten years. This may; however, vary from person to person.
What is the life expectancy of someone with AIDS?
- Social and economic circumstances – there are important differences in life expectancy according to where you grow up, your income, education, social class and so on.
- Gender – women usually live longer than men.
- Genetics – you may be more likely to develop certain conditions if close relatives have had them.
What is the best treatment for HIV?
- HIV medicine is called antiretroviral therapy (ART).
- There is no effective cure for HIV. But with proper medical care, you can control HIV.
- Most people can get the virus under control within six months.
- Taking HIV medicine does not prevent transmission of other sexually transmitted diseases.
How long can I live without HIV drugs?
indicates that a person with HIV living in a high-income country would add 43.3 years to their life expectancy if they receive a diagnosis at age 20. Without adequate treatment, however, HIV can...

Can you live a long live with HIV?
The virus may never become fatal, but it can have a significant impact on your life and health. One study showed that people with HIV live 16 fewer years in good health than people who don't have the virus. First, there are opportunistic infections.
What is the lifetime of HIV patient?
Compared to the general population, the life expectancy for patients with HIV infection at age 20 is about 36 years less. We have found that out a total of 1597 years of life lost during 2001-2011, compared to an overall AYLL for all HIV/AIDS, the deaths had occurred 36 years earlier than the life expectancy.
How long can a person with HIV live without treatment?
Population studies proved that AIDS patients who did not take HIV medications survived for roughly three years. Once they developed a dangerous opportunistic illness, life expectancy with AIDS (in the absence of treatment) decreased to one year or less.
How to improve life expectancy with HIV?
1. Staying physically and mentally active. Socializing with friends, reading, listening to music, and engaging in your favorite hobbies helps battle depression and the loss of brain function .
How to treat HIV and AIDS?
Beginning a treatment regimen is the first step in creating a positive care plan and should include strategies for protecting your immune system. Since numerous ART options exist to manage the virus, consult your health care provider about tailoring a drug plan to your unique symptoms.
How to maintain long term physical and mental health?
Exercise is a great way to maintain long-term physical and mental health, while also upping strength, endurance, and fitness. An HIV or AIDS diagnosis will not affect your ability to engage in these activities. Ask your health care provider about how to stay fit and make workouts a part of your daily routine. 6. Practicing safe sex.
How to avoid eating raw eggs?
Avoid raw eggs, meats, fish, and other seafood. Use a separate cutting board for meat. Wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly. Clean cutting boards, utensils, and your hands with warm soapy water after coming into contact with raw meat and other ingredients.
How to help someone with depression?
Socializing with friends, reading, listening to music, and engaging in your favorite hobbies helps battle depression and the loss of brain function. Don’t be afraid to try something different, which might offer a chance to forge new relationships and serve as a source of personal enjoyment.
Is eating right good for HIV?
While eating right is beneficial to everyone, it’s absolutely essential for HIV and AIDS patients , regardless of what stage they’re in. The drugs prescribed to combat the virus often upset the digestive system, causing additional issues, such as:
How to determine life expectancy?
When looking at both static and dynamic risk factors, we can begin to identify where an individual can gain or lose life-years without even knowing it. Among them: 1 A person's CD4 count at the start of treatment remains one of the strongest indicators of life expectancy. The life expectancy between those whose CD4 count is less than 200 at the start of treatment is 8 years less than those whose count is over 200 at the same time. 2 2 Smokers with HIV lose more life-years to smoking than to HIV. In fact, the risk of death from smoking is twice as high among smokers with HIV , and can trim as much as 10 years a person's lifespan irrespective of HIV. 6 3 Race and longevity are integrally linked to HIV. According to a 2012 study, the mortality rate among HIV-positive Blacks was 13% higher than the rate for Whites and 47% higher than the rate for Hispanic populations. 7 4 Injecting drug users suffer losses, both in terms of HIV-and non-HIV-related illnesses. The strongest contributing factors were poor adherence and hepatitis C co-infection. All told, mortality rates are nearly twice as high for HIV-positive injecting drug users than HIV-positive non-injecting drug users. 8
How long does a person with HIV live with a CD4 count of 200?
The life expectancy between those whose CD4 count is less than 200 at the start of treatment is 8 years less than those whose count is over 200 at the same time. 2 . Smokers with HIV lose more life-years to smoking than to HIV. In fact, the risk of death from smoking is twice as high among smokers with HIV , and can trim ...
What are the factors that affect life expectancy?
Gains and Losses in Life Years. Factors that influence life expectancy are either static (fix ed) or dynamic (able to change over time). Static factors, like race or sexual orientation, influence life expectancy because they are ones people are often unable to escape.
Is HIV a long term concern?
Moreover, HIV is really only part of the long-term concern. Even for those able to maintain an undetectable viral load, the risk of non-HIV-associated diseases, like cancer and heart disease, is far greater than in the general population and can occur anywhere from 10 to 15 years earlier. 4 .
Who is James Myhre?
James Myhre is an American journalist and HIV educator. Latesha Elopre, MD, is a board-certified internist specializing in HIV. She is an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It is natural to wonder how long you could live if you have HIV.
Can a 20 year old live with HIV?
With advances in antiretroviral therapy, people with HIV can today expect to live longer and healthier than ever If treatment is started early and taken daily as directed. 1 . A 20-year-old started on HIV therapy can expect to live into his ...
Does HIV affect longevity?
From an individual perspective, longevity is subject to numerous factors that can either increase or decrease life expectancy in a person with HIV.
How long does it take for HIV to progress?
If ART is not given, a chronic HIV infection usually advances to AIDS in 10 years or longer. In some people, however, it may advance faster. If ART is administered, the person may stay in this stage for several decades.
What is the final stage of HIV?
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome ( AIDS) is the final and most severe stage of HIV. In this stage, HIV reduces CD4 cell counts to very low levels (less than 200 units), which severely damages the immune system.
What is a swollen lymph node?
Swollen lymph nodes (glands that protect from infections; they can be felt when swollen in the armpits, groin and neck) In the acute stage, the virus multiplies rapidly and spreads throughout the body. HIV targets and destroys the CD4 cells (the infection-fighting cells of the immune system); in this stage of HIV infection, ...
What is the stage of asymptomatic HIV?
Chronic HIV infection. This is the stage of asymptomatic HIV infection or clinical latency. In this stage, the symptoms of stage one go away but the HIV infection continues to multiply in the body, though at very low levels.
How long does HIV last?
In the case of an untreated HIV infection, the overall mortality rate is more than 90%. The average time from infection to death is eight to ten years. This may; however, vary from person to person. Many factors affect survival:
What is an opportunistic infection?
Opportunistic infections are infections and infection-related cancers that occur more frequently or are more severe in people with weakened immune systems than in people with healthy immune systems. Once a person progresses to AIDS, they have a high viral load and can transmit HIV to others very easily. In the absence of treatment, people ...
What are the symptoms of a moderately symptomatic stage?
Moderately symptomatic stage. In this stage, due to disease progression, certain symptoms appear: Weight loss that is greater than 10% of the person’s total body weight. Prolonged (more than one month) of unexplained diarrhea. Tuberculosis and other severe infections of the lungs, kidney, brain, bones, and joints.
How long does life expectancy last after HIV treatment?
This may have occurred before HIV was diagnosed and/or before HIV treatment was begun. These illnesses have a negative impact on life expectancy. Results one year after starting HIV treatment. Studies show that life expectancy is better for people who respond well within a year of starting treatment than for people who do not.
Why is life expectancy shorter for HIV patients?
Injecting drug use – life expectancy is shorter for people with HIV who inject drugs, due to drug overdoses and bacterial infections. It’s also important to consider things that affect everyone’s life expectancy, whether or not they have HIV.
How can HIV affect your life?
People who have a good response to HIV treatment have excellent long-term prospects. You can increase your life expectancy by not smoking and having a healthy lifestyle . HIV-positive people are living increasingly long lives.
How long can a 50 year old live?
Among men, a 35 year old and a 50 year old could expect to live to 78 and 81 years respectively. Among women, a 35 year old and a 50 year old were predicted to live to 81 and 83 years respectively. For people whose initial response to treatment was not quite so good, life expectancy was a little shorter.
How does HIV help people?
People living with HIV will benefit from improved anti-HIV drugs that have fewer side-effects, are easier to take and are more effective in suppressing HIV. Doctors’ understanding of how best to prevent and treat heart disease, diabetes, cancers and other conditions in people with HIV is improving.
Why is life expectancy longer?
Lifestyle – life expectancy is longer for people who have a balanced diet, are physically active, maintain a healthy weight, avoid excess alcohol or drug use, and remain socially connected. Avoiding smoking is particularly important for life expectancy.
When do HIV deaths occur?
When deaths do occur, they usually happen in the first year after diagnosis and involve people who were diagnosed with HIV very late, when they were already very ill because of HIV. In many of these cases, the person did not attend an HIV clinic or did not take HIV treatment, or only did so irregularly.
What does it mean when your HIV is suppressed?
Viral suppression is defined as having less than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood. HIV medicine can make the viral load so low that a test can’t detect it (called an undetectable viral load ). If your viral load goes down after starting HIV treatment, that means treatment is working.
What is the amount of HIV in the blood called?
The amount of HIV in the blood is called viral load . Taking your HIV medicine as prescribed will help keep your viral load low and your CD4 cell count high. HIV medicine can make the viral load very low (called viral suppression ). Viral suppression is defined as having less than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood.
What happens if you skip your medication?
If you skip your medications, even now and then, you are giving HIV the chance to multiply rapidly. This could weaken your immune system, and you could become sick. Getting and keeping an undetectable viral load (or staying virally suppressed) is the best way to stay healthy and protect others.
How long does it take for a mother to give her baby HIV?
If a mother with HIV takes HIV medicine as prescribed throughout pregnancy, labor, and delivery and gives HIV medicine to her baby for 4 to 6 weeks after birth, the risk of transmitting HIV to her baby can be 1% or less.
Why is it important to take HIV medication?
Taking HIV medication consistently, as prescribed, helps prevent drug resistance. Drug resistance develops when people with HIV are inconsistent with taking their HIV medication as prescribed. The virus can change (mutate) and will no longer respond to certain HIV medication. If you develop drug resistance, it will limit your options ...
How long does it take to get rid of HIV?
There is no effective cure for HIV. But with proper medical care, you can control HIV. Most people can get the virus under control within six months. Taking HIV medicine does not prevent transmission ...
What are the factors that affect your willingness to stick to your treatment plan?
Being sick or depressed. How you feel mentally and physically can affect your willingness to stick to your treatment plan. Your health care provider, social worker, or case manager can refer you to a mental health provider or local support groups. Alcohol or drug use.
How long can a person live with AIDS?
A person can potentially live for years, even with full-blown AIDS, but just how many years is highly variable from person to person. What we can say is that the vast majority of people infected with HIV will develop AIDS sometime during their life (an average of 10 years or more after infection), and with early intervention and treatment, ...
How long can a person live without HIV?
One recent study used mathematical modeling to predict that some HIV positive people (perhaps 10% or more) may live up to 25 years without getting AIDS. Because HIV has only been studied since the early 1980s, we cannot say at this time how accurate this mathematical model may be.
Is HIV more virulent than other strains?
The virulence of the strain of HIV. Some strains of HIV may be more virulent than others. We have already found cases where a person was infected with a rare genetically defective strain of HIV, and that strain was not causing any significant illness (so far). Drug resistant strains of HIV.
What is the phone number for the Centers for Disease Control?
If you have any further questions, please feel free to call the Centers for Disease Control at 1.800.232.4636 (Nationwide). You should know: The answer above provides general health information that is not intended to replace medical advice or treatment recommendations from a qualified health care professional.
Is HIV still alive?
This is because there are some people who have been infected for many years (since the epidemic was first recognized in the early 1980s), and they are still alive today. Some of these patients have been found to have rare genetically defective strains of HIV that are not causing them any significant illness thus far.
Can HIV be drug resistant?
Drug resistant strains of HIV. People who have drug resistant strains of HIV may not live as long, if the drugs that are available are no longer effective. But if a person is responding well to their medications, they are expected to live longer. The genetic make-up of the person. A few people have genetic mutations in their white blood cells ...
Do people who have other medical problems live longer?
People who have other medical problems, and/or those with a history of substance abuse, may not live as long. How well the person takes care of themselves emotionally.
How long do people with HIV live after diagnosis?
That’s a significant change from the early years of the epidemic when people who were diagnosed with HIV or AIDS could expect to live only 1-2 years after their diagnosis. This meant that the issues of aging were not a major focus for people with HIV disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2018, ...
How many people with HIV have a neurocognitive disorder?
Researchers estimate that between 25 and 50% of people with HIV have HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND), a spectrum of cognitive, motor, and/or mood disorders categorized into three levels: asymptomatic, mild, and HIV-associated dementia.
What are the challenges of HIV?
Living with HIV presents certain challenges, no matter what your age. But older people with HIV may face different issues than their younger counterparts, including greater social isolation and loneliness. Stigma is also a particular concern among older people with HIV. Stigma negatively affects people’s quality of life, self-image, and behaviors, and may prevent them disclosing their HIV status or seeking the health care or social services that many aging adults my require. HIV care.
How old are people with HIV?
For this reason, nearly half of people living with diagnosed HIV in the United States are aged 50 and older. Many of them have been living with HIV for many years; others were diagnosed with HIV later in life. That’s a significant change from the early years of the epidemic when people who were diagnosed with HIV or AIDS could expect ...
What is stigma in HIV?
Stigma is also a particular concern among older people with HIV. Stigma negatively affects people’s quality of life, self-image, and behaviors, and may prevent them disclosing their HIV status or seeking the health care or social services that many aging adults my require. HIV care.
What are the health issues associated with HIV?
People aging with HIV share many of the same health concerns as the general population aged 50 and older: multiple chronic diseases or conditions, the use of multiple medications, changes in physical and cognitive abilities, and increased vulnerability to stressors. In addition, while effective HIV treatment has ...
Can HIV be suppressed?
Growing Older with HIV. Today, thanks to improvements in the effectiveness of treatment with HIV medicine (called antiretroviral therapy or ART), people with HIV who are diagnosed early and who get and stay on ART can keep the virus suppressed and live long and healthy lives. For this reason, nearly half of people living with diagnosed HIV in ...
How long can you live with HIV without treatment?
Without treatment, some people see their CD4 count drop to under 200 within a few years of infection, while others people can go for 5-10 years or longer before they need treatment.
What does ART mean for HIV?
Answer. The best way to answer this is to say that modern HIV treatment (ART) means that life expectancy is not affected by being HIV positive. HIV positive people with access to treatment can be expected to live as long as before they became positive.
