Thursday, February 25, 2010

UNDETECTABLE!!!!!!

The doctor's office called me with the results of Victoria's blood work from Monday. Her viral load is UNDETECTABLE! I am so excited about this. While I knew that this is the ultimate goal with medication, I didn't expect it to be so soon. Victoria hadn't even been on the full dose of medicine for two weeks when we had her blood drawn on Monday, so I didn't expect this type of result until at least the next set of blood work. Needless to say, I am so, so happy! This medication that Victoria is on has been great. It is a very easy regimine and she has had absolutely no side effects!

10 comments:

  1. That is the best news I have heard all month!!! WOOHOO!!! AWESOME!

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  2. Ok I have a question, so if a child has HIV, and has been on medication and gotten tehir levels to an undetectable level, when they test for HIV will they be able to tell?

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  3. Brooke -

    Good question! The answer is yes, even a person with an undetectable viral load will test + for HIV with HIV tests. The reason is that the HIV test measures antibodies and the viral load test just measures the level of HIV in the person's blood. The person will always have HIV antibodies if they are +. Also, the viral load test only measures the amount of virus in the blood. The virus can live in body tissues, DNA, etc. The reason an undetectable level is good though is because it tells us that the medicine is doing what it is supposed to do. The virus in the tissues, DNA, etc. is sort of "dormant" and not in an active stage, so it doesn't affect the person's immune system. An undetectable viral load in the blood also makes things like skinned knees and bloody noses less of a concern because the chance of transmission decreases (although we will still always use caution in these situations).

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  4. That is wonderful!! Thank you for sharing, and educating the rest of us
    Kelly-OH

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  5. Awesome! That was so fast. I'm amazed. I thought it takes a few months of treatment. So happy for you and V. I can tell how excited you are, and for good reason. Here's to a long happy healthy life with a normal immune system thanks to the meds.

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  6. Great News! I'm so happy for your family :)

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  7. I feel like I am FINALLY able to catch up on some blogs now:) So glad that you all are doing well!!!

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