Is Weight Loss Indicative Of HIV Infection?
No time line can be predicted for weight loos
Detailed Answer:
Thanks for your question. I am Dr Matin and will be answering your queries.
HIV is the disease which can't be predicted on the basis of symptoms and weight loss too is a generalized symptom , which can be found in many non-HIV diseases like TB and intestinal mal- absorption syndromes.
In HIV language weight loss can be termed significant if you loose 10% of weight unintentionally, associated with 1 month of fever/diarrhea or both,which is not attributable to any concurrent condition other than HIV infection itself.
Weight loss and wasting syndrome may be two AIDS-related complications that, if not adequately treated, can be life threatening. Even though anti-HIV therapies have helped reduce the risk of weight loss and wasting syndrome, both problems still occur.
Very often, both occur at the same time. However, this is not always the case.- weight loss refers to a loss of body weight. Wasting syndrome refers to a loss of body mass or size, most notably muscle mass (sometimes referred to as "lean body mass").
It is possible that someone who is losing weight might not lose muscle mass. It is also possible that someone losing muscle mass might not lose a lot of weight. For example, some HIV-positive people lose a lot of muscle. Yet they may experience an increase in fat. This can cause weight to stay the same, even though muscle wasting is going on.
Weight loss in HIV infection is characterized by depletion of both fat and lean tissue and can be a Rapid Weight loss associated with acute infections whereas more gradual weight loss has been associated with mal-absorptive disorders. Patients with HIV infection have also been shown to experience periods of weight stability and weight gain.
So as such very difficult to predict the time line of weight loss in a HIV patient , but if a patient is having 30 days of diarrhea/ weakness/fever not attributed to any cause other than HIV, then by the definition, the weight loss starts showing up.
Take home message is that the Weight loss, or wasting, is one of the most common symptoms of untreated HIV infection, and can occur at any stage of infection, though weight loss leading wasting syndrome is a stage IV illness in HIV parlor , so It needs to be taken seriously because unintentional loss of weight is often a sign of an active HIV-related infection or disease.
As I am not aware about your status , so I want to emphasize that these all things are applicable only in HIV positive persons and to have a diagnosis of this , one needs to a HIV positive first .
Hope this helps.
Regards
Information inadequate to comment
Detailed Answer:
Thanks for your response.
The information provided is inadequate to comment much.
It is to be made clear that that chances of acquisition of HIV after having unprotected sex with an HIV + person, is something around 5% meaning thereby that not every sexual exposure will result into an HIV infection
We are not even aware of the HIV status of your partner.
As informed in the last response, HIV can't be diagnosed by mere symptoms and remaining healthier or loosing weight will not lead to any conclusion about the negativity or positivity of the person.
As the window period of HIV is 90 days and any 4th Generation test ( which is done usually in all labs) will pick up 99.7% of positive cases @90 days , so any test done after three months of exposure, coming negative will mean that the person is effectively an HIV negative .
I guess, you need a HIV test now as your exposure is 91 days old and make things easier for you.
Hope it helps.
posiitivity or negativity conclusive @90 days
Detailed Answer:
Thanks for your response.
As already stated in previous response , yes, indeed , your posiitivity or negativity will be conclusive @90 days post exposure HIV test .Hope this helps.
Regards