₦airaland Forum

leaculpa:
The drugs are free to citizens but theyre not free. Antiretroviral drugs are expensive. The NGO APIN (Aids prevention in Nigeria) makes it free to all nigerian citizens living with

lefulefu:
so a person who is a heavy smoker and drinker b4 he caught the virus ..then how u going to tell such a person to stop drinking and smoking when he becomes positive .

SarkinYarki:
You think I dont know you and the other chap work for the same NGO and this is just publicity

Hopebringer:
Very true

I dated a hiv positive lady , I am negative, and the relationship was fun

I.left her cause she was insane and a narcissist

Olarewaju89:
I want to go and sleep now before NCDC release their nonsense figure.

maberry:
There are diseases worse than HIV but I prefer not to HIV abeg

leaculpa:
The drugs are free to citizens but theyre not free drugs.

Antiretroviral drugs are expensive, as you may know. The NGO APIN (Aids prevention in Nigeria) makes it free to all nigerian citizens living with the disease. They do this in several African countries with high HIV rates. They distribute the drugs to hospitals and have satellite offices inside most teaching hospitals in Nigeria.

APIN is funded by the WHO, USAID, DFID & the bill &melinda gates foundation.

Hopebringer:
Very true
I dated a hiv positive lady , I am negative, and the relationship was fun
I.left her cause she was insane and a narcissist

Notyamate:
Going through this thread https://www.nairaland.com/5795526/how-found-out-hiv-positive/1 I went through comments and I laugh at the ignorance of some people on Nairaland. I'm sharing this story to people living with HIV reading this, you are not alone. Believe me there are many people out there with this disease, some happily married, growing old and having healthy kids.

On April 2013 my aunt got diagnosed with HIV at Catholic Hospital, Oluyoro. If you stay in Ibadan you'll know this hospital. She was 58 years at the time of her diagnosis. Before she was diagnosed she was getting sick and having symptoms like cold, head ache, sweating at night, and insomnia. We were worried because this is a person that hardly get sick, so we took her to a private hospital where the doctor told us she has typhoid. She was on drip for two days before discharge after that she was fine again. Not until 3 months later she started having those symptoms again, we didn't count it as anything and took her to that same hospital where she was given drips again. After the drips she was fine again.

The last straw was when she started vomiting and fainted on me, I was the only one at home that day. I performed CPR on her and then I decided to take her to a general hospital where proper medical examination can be done on her.

When we got there we queue, collect card and wait for doctor to attend to us. The doctor ask us some questions and the symptoms she has been having and for how long. After that the doctor directed us to where a nurse collected samples of her blood and we waited for the result.

When the doctor said she has HIV I couldn't believe my ears, all blood drained from my body and I was shaking. It was the last thing I expected because this was a person whose last born was 19years at the time. After she was diagnosed the doctor gave her drugs, she started explaining how to take the drug and how taking it everyday without missing a dose is important.

Our journey back home was quiet, I was thinking throughout, how did this happen? When we got home we meet my uncle (her husband) and we told her everything the doctor said. Everybody was just looking at one another, thinking 'we all don get HIV'.

The next morning my uncle took us all to the hospital to get tested and to know who and who have the disease. After going through the hospital routine our results came out. We were all tested negative including her husband, which brings all of us to ask, how did she get it? Till today no one knows. Her doctor says she has been living with it for over 5 years and none of us know including her.

My observations in her years of taking ARV drugs.

As I said earlier she was very sick when I took her to the hospital. Her CD4 count was 194, way too low. Normal CD4 count is from 500 to 1400. CD4 count is a test that measures how many CD4 cells you have in your blood. Low CD4 count means your body can't fight bacteria, viruses, and other invading germs.

Three months into the drugs she was tested again and her count was 242, another 3 months and it was 269.

She has been getting tested every six months and in the last five years her CD4 count has being between 340-390 and she hasn't suffer any illness whatsoever. Except for the drugs she's taken you won't know she has HIV.

How the drug is taken.

The drug is taken once in a day. It is left for you to decide when you want to take it but once you chose, you must be consistent with the time when you take the next dose so that it will be the exact time everyday. Doctors usually advise patients to take the drug at night because of the side effects which includes drowsiness and dizziness. The drug is taken 2 hrs after eating. When I asked the doctor why she said something about pepper and oil reacting with the drug.

The ARV drugs is free if you go to general hospital. The bottle contains 30 tablets to be complete in a month.

Important things you can do as an HIV person.

1. Avoid drinking alcohol/smoking as this can compromise your health condition. This is really very important.

2. Eat good and healthy food.

3. Exercise.

4. Eat a lot of fruit: her doctor emphasize on this. It doesn't have to be expensive, you can buy oranges, mangoes, bananas, watermelons and other cheap fruits.

5. Take your drug daily: This is very important even if you forget to take it at the usual time, just take it whenever you remember. Like let's say you normally take the drug at 9pm but then you forgot or you slept off. When you wake up just take it. DO NOT MISS A DOSE.

6. If you feel or have any changes in your body. Go to your doctor and explain to him/her. I'm saying this because after few months of taken her drug she was coughing persistently, her doctor had to give her some cough medicine. Although she's not using any cough medicine again as all symptoms has gone. Only the ARV drug and septrin.

The side effect of ARV drugs

The first month she started the drugs she complains of having nightmares, fatigue, headache, and dizziness but with time her body adapted to it and all the symptoms disappeared.

Having a strong immunity also plays important role in an HIV person. I think those with genotype AA tends to adapt well with HIV which explains why none of us know she has the virus in her body for over five years.

All I'm trying to get to is that having HIV is not the end of the world, it's not a death sentence. What kills most of these people is the fear and stigma from friends and family.

When people tell you they have HIV, do not run away from them like they are plague or some kind of viral infection. Love them, support them, play with them, laugh with them. You cannot contract the disease by playing with them, eating together, sharing cutleries, handshakes, hugs, etc.

In the end we are all going to die whether today or tomorrow, accident happens everyday. People slumps and die, people drown, fire accident happens, building collapse. I mean there are 1000 ways to die.

Those that you think they will die today, you may die before them. When it is your TIME, it is your TIME.

NwaNimo1:
life is a death sentence....

Ibrahiimo:
STRICTLY FOR LADIES:

In the past two weeks FEMALES seems to have lost their DIGNITY and PRIDE with the numerous challenges targeted at them that requires exposing PARTS of their BODIES which society considers private for little sums of MONEY.

In FACEBOOK groups, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER and all social media platforms any post on what do you need 95% of the replies by FEMALES would be MONEY, ask them to drop a pic of themselves in BED, in SHOWER, in night WEAR, post pics of their BUM or BOOBS gets so much replies by even GIRLS who are supposedly in the working class league. Many times I ask myself these GIRLS are people daughter's, friend, more baffling a MAN'S lover, GIRLFRIEND and surprisingly someone's WIFE.

The question is how do we get our LADIES to discipline themselves at the sight of MONETARY gains and carry their BODIES with PRIDE. How do you loose your dignity because of a RECHARGE CARD you can comfortably afford yourself?

Remember some of these GIRLS would birth the next generation of KIDS if we help them now we are indirectly going to save the society from a MORAL collapse.

ibkayee:
Helpful, positive information

Not to be a debbie downer however, but how accessible are these treatments for the average person in Nigeria? It isn't a death sentence when you have access to a certain quality of healthcare

Notyamate:
Going through this thread https://www.nairaland.com/5795526/how-found-out-hiv-positive/1 I went through comments and I laugh at the ignorance of some people on Nairaland. I'm sharing this story to people living with HIV reading this, you are not alone. Believe me there are many people out there with this disease, some happily married, growing old and having healthy kids.

On April 2013 my aunt got diagnosed with HIV at Catholic Hospital, Oluyoro. If you stay in Ibadan you'll know this hospital. She was 58 years at the time of her diagnosis. Before she was diagnosed she was getting sick and having symptoms like cold, head ache, sweating at night, and insomnia. We were worried because this is a person that hardly get sick, so we took her to a private hospital where the doctor told us she has typhoid. She was on drip for two days before discharge after that she was fine again. Not until 3 months later she started having those symptoms again, we didn't count it as anything and took her to that same hospital where she was given drips again. After the drips she was fine again.

The last straw was when she started vomiting and fainted on me, I was the only one at home that day. I performed CPR on her and then I decided to take her to a general hospital where proper medical examination can be done on her.

When we got there we queue, collect card and wait for doctor to attend to us. The doctor ask us some questions and the symptoms she has been having and for how long. After that the doctor directed us to where a nurse collected samples of her blood and we waited for the result.

When the doctor said she has HIV I couldn't believe my ears, all blood drained from my body and I was shaking. It was the last thing I expected because this was a person whose last born was 19years at the time. After she was diagnosed the doctor gave her drugs, she started explaining how to take the drug and how taking it everyday without missing a dose is important.

Our journey back home was quiet, I was thinking throughout, how did this happen? When we got home we meet my uncle (her husband) and we told her everything the doctor said. Everybody was just looking at one another, thinking 'we all don get HIV'.

The next morning my uncle took us all to the hospital to get tested and to know who and who have the disease. After going through the hospital routine our results came out. We were all tested negative including her husband, which brings all of us to ask, how did she get it? Till today no one knows. Her doctor says she has been living with it for over 5 years and none of us know including her.

My observations in her years of taking ARV drugs.

As I said earlier she was very sick when I took her to the hospital. Her CD4 count was 194, way too low. Normal CD4 count is from 500 to 1400. CD4 count is a test that measures how many CD4 cells you have in your blood. Low CD4 count means your body can't fight bacteria, viruses, and other invading germs.

Three months into the drugs she was tested again and her count was 242, another 3 months and it was 269.

She has been getting tested every six months and in the last five years her CD4 count has being between 340-390 and she hasn't suffer any illness whatsoever. Except for the drugs she's taken you won't know she has HIV.

How the drug is taken.

The drug is taken once in a day. It is left for you to decide when you want to take it but once you chose, you must be consistent with the time when you take the next dose so that it will be the exact time everyday. Doctors usually advise patients to take the drug at night because of the side effects which includes drowsiness and dizziness. The drug is taken 2 hrs after eating. When I asked the doctor why she said something about pepper and oil reacting with the drug.

The ARV drugs is free if you go to general hospital. The bottle contains 30 tablets to be complete in a month.

Important things you can do as an HIV person.

1. Avoid drinking alcohol/smoking as this can compromise your health condition. This is really very important.

2. Eat good and healthy food.

3. Exercise.

4. Eat a lot of fruit: her doctor emphasize on this. It doesn't have to be expensive, you can buy oranges, mangoes, bananas, watermelons and other cheap fruits.

5. Take your drug daily: This is very important even if you forget to take it at the usual time, just take it whenever you remember. Like let's say you normally take the drug at 9pm but then you forgot or you slept off. When you wake up just take it. DO NOT MISS A DOSE.

6. If you feel or have any changes in your body. Go to your doctor and explain to him/her. I'm saying this because after few months of taken her drug she was coughing persistently, her doctor had to give her some cough medicine. Although she's not using any cough medicine again as all symptoms has gone. Only the ARV drug and septrin.

The side effect of ARV drugs

The first month she started the drugs she complains of having nightmares, fatigue, headache, and dizziness but with time her body adapted to it and all the symptoms disappeared.

Having a strong immunity also plays important role in an HIV person. I think those with genotype AA tends to adapt well with HIV which explains why none of us know she has the virus in her body for over five years.

All I'm trying to get to is that having HIV is not the end of the world, it's not a death sentence. What kills most of these people is the fear and stigma from friends and family.

When people tell you they have HIV, do not run away from them like they are plague or some kind of viral infection. Love them, support them, play with them, laugh with them. You cannot contract the disease by playing with them, eating together, sharing cutleries, handshakes, hugs, etc.

In the end we are all going to die whether today or tomorrow, accident happens everyday. People slumps and die, people drown, fire accident happens, building collapse. I mean there are 1000 ways to die.

Those that you think they will die today, you may die before them. When it is your TIME, it is your TIME.

ehmmy11:
Waiting for your test results can be the longest wait of your life

Use your head think ahead

Lamanii22:
This should mame front page cause TBH whenever I see HIV I think of death lol... Like it's equivalent to death....

Mizwisdom:
So people should go out and contact HIV because your aunt is living with it? taking tablet every day for the rest of her life

Olarewaju89:
I want to go and sleep now before NCDC release their nonsense figure.

spongeisback:
I hope you're this bothered when you see stories of men raping kids, one million boys or whatever they're called going about killing and stealing.
I hope you know they're also the ones that will birth the future kids or is morality only for females?
You hypocrites always want to police women but the men in this country are the PROBLEMS.

Mizwisdom:
Seems you're advertising this your NGO, you want people to contract Aids so you can get grants from foreign NGOs?

Niwdog:
You said she had the virus for 5 years and her husband result came out negative is that they weren't doing it raw all what?