HIV? AIDS? WTF? The Faces of AIDS

by Mary Turner

Gayly Health Columnist

So, it’s 2013, and if you’re young, nobody you know has ever died of AIDS. In fact, you may not know many people who still talk about the risk of HIV infection. To you, maybe that topic is just ‘yesterday’s news.’

However, even though AIDS doesn’t kill as quickly as it once did, the progression from a healthy individual to one who battles the disease daily is anything but pleasant. Besides the emotional anguish of knowing that you have the deadly HIV virus living in your cells, there is the additional anguish of watching yourself change physically. AIDS, the nasty little infections that follow it around, and the medications used to treat these things can all cause dramatic changes in your appearance. 

One unfortunate change occurs in the distribution of body fat. Over time, you may lose fat deposits in your arms, legs, and face. These areas are left looking gaunt and skeletal. The fat doesn’t just disappear, however; it redistributes around your belly and on the back of your neck making you look bloated and disfigured. Rashes are also common with many of the medications you will have to take. These can be flat or raised red spots with blisters in the center of each spot.  These rashes can be all over the external skin on your body, or they may also be in your mouth, in your eyes, your genitals, or in other moist areas of the body.

As unpleasant as that might be for you to contemplate, some of those drugs will also cause the skin on the soles of your feet and on the palms of your hands to turn very dark. It would be safe to say that you won’t be able to “play off” the fact that you’re in treatment. You will also experience extreme fatigue.  Some of this may be due to anemia or iron loss in your blood.  You may experience changes in the way things taste which only increases your loss of appetite and nausea. Yes, modern medicine means that you can live much longer with HIV/AIDS, but it won’t necessarily be a quality life – and it certainly won’t be ‘pretty.’

Let me transition, now, to the really awful, potentially life-threatening side effects of the medications you’ll have to take to help you live. Some of the drugs you will have to take will change your heart rhythms; they will make you feel numbness and tingling around your mouth; they will cause dangerously high bilirubin and fat levels; they will cause peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage in your hands and feet resulting in burning pain loss of function).

Your skin and the whites of your eyes become a deep yellow (jaundice). High levels of fat in your blood mean that deposits are collecting in your veins and arteries, increasing your risk of stroke, heart attack, and cardiovascular disease. These can all be fatal – not to mention costly while you are still living.

You will also be at an increased risk of hyperglycemia (diabetes) on top of the already expansive and expensive set of meds you will have to take; you will also have to take those for diabetes.  Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and amputations in the United States and can cause other disease like kidney disease.

Further, it’s very important that when taking these medications, you have frequent laboratory work done to monitor how well your liver and other organs are holding up.

As much of a downer as this topic might be, this discussion really isn’t about depressing you.  It’s about educating you so that you can make smart choices. If you already are HIV+ or living with AIDS, you must educate yourself and discipline yourself take your medications and live the fullest life possible. If you are NOT positive, then you must educate yourself and discipline yourself to practice safer sex (latex condoms) and to never share needles or other sharp objects (razors, toothbrushes, etc.) with anyone else. Your life, and quality of life, depends on it.