Four Goals of HIV Therapy

Whether you're just starting on HIV medication, or you've been taking HIV meds for years, you should be aware of four important goals of HIV therapy.

Goal #1: Working with your doctor or healthcare provider to select a therapy that works for you.

Whether you're newly diagnosed with HIV, or are already on HIV medicines, it's important to take an active role in your HIV therapy. That means partnering with your doctor or healthcare provider to choose the regimen/treatment program that works best for you. Keep in mind that not all medicines work the same. Be sure to ask questions so that you understand exactly how your regimen works, and what you can do to keep your HIV load undetectable. An undetectable viral load is defined on this website as less than 50 copies per milliliter of blood. This is discussed under Goal #2.

Before you and your healthcare provider choose medicines, it may be important to discuss how the drugs have performed for other people. Some drug combinations may not have been studied in clinical trials in both new and treatment experienced HIV patients. For example, if you are a person new to HIV therapy, you may want to make sure that the combination of drugs you start taking has been studied in other people who were new to therapy. Though your results may vary from the study, it's important to have all the facts when discussing your treatment plan with your doctor.

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Goal #2: Keeping your HIV levels undetectable.

While there is currently no cure for HIV, there are medicines that can help lower your viral load (the levels of HIV virus in your blood as measured by HIV RNA) as low as possible. The lower your viral load is, the better, because that means you have less HIV reproducing in your body.

Sometimes your viral load will be so low that it cannot be detectable by an HIV blood test.* When this happens, your viral load is said to be 'undetectable'. When your viral load is undetectable, it means that your HIV meds are doing a good job to help your body fight HIV.

Although some people cannot get their viral loads down to undetectable levels, it's still important for them to work with their healthcare providers to choose medicines that help keep the viral load as low as possible. An undetectable viral load does not mean that you no longer have HIV. You are still infected and can pass the virus to others.

*Blood tests that measure the amount of HIV in your blood have different sensitivities. For example, certain blood tests can detect 400 or more HIV copies per milliliter in your blood, while others can detect 50 copies per milliliter or more. On this website, an undetectable viral load means less than 50 HIV copies per milliliter of blood.

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Goal #3: Keeping your CD4 T-cells high.

In addition to keeping the viral load low, your HIV medicines should help increase the amount of CD4 T-cells in your body. CD4 T-cells help make up your immune system. They are cells in your body that help you stay healthy by fighting infections. When you have HIV, the virus takes over your body's CD4 T-cells, and turns them into HIV "factories" that make copies of the virus. Over time, as the virus copies itself over and over, there are fewer CD4 T-cells in your body. Eventually, your body has a harder time fighting infections.

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Goal #4: Minimizing HIV resistance and keeping your therapy working.

It's important to choose an HIV medicine that helps reduce the risk of your HIV developing resistance. Resistance means that the HIV virus changes, or mutates, in a way that eventually stops one or more medicines from working the way they should. Besides choosing medicines that reduce the risk of your HIV developing resistance, it's also very important to always take your medicines exactly the way your doctor prescribed them.

When your HIV becomes resistant to a certain medicine, that medicine and even similar medicines may not work as well as before. This may mean having to switch to a different medicine. In fact, resistance is one of the main reasons why HIV medicines stop working. Once your HIV becomes resistant to an HIV medicine, you may have fewer treatment options.

The first step is to take control of your therapy plan.

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