People with HIV infection need to receive education about the disease and its treatment so they can be active partners in decision making with the health care provider. Recent studies show that aggressive early treatment of HIV infection with HIV medications can slow the progression of disease. You should discuss this option with your health care provider. Certain healthful practices should be followed in the early stages of HIV infection:

• Stress should be kept to a minimum.
• Avoid exposure to people with acute infectious illnesses.
• Get adequate exercise, but don't wear yourself out.
• Maintain a nutritious diet with adequate caloric intake.
• Avoid settings and situations that could lead to depression. Maintain positive social contacts, hobbies, interests, and pets.
• Practice safer sex. The disease is highly infectious in the first month after infection.

HIV is a long-term medical condition that can be treated but not yet cured. There are effective means of preventing complications and delaying (but not preventing) progression to AIDS. At the present time, not all cases of HIV have progressed to AIDS, but time has shown that the vast majority do.

• AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome)
• opportunistic infections (unlikely to occur in early stages of HIV disease)
  • pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
  • candidiasis
  • cytomegalovirus infection
  • toxoplasmosis
  • cryptosporidium enterocolitis
• malignancies, typically Kaposi's sarcoma and lymphomas
• autoimmune diseases

Call for an appointment with your health care provider if you have had a possible or actual exposure to AIDS or HIV infection; or if you are at risk and have had symptoms suggestive of acute HIV infection.