Aids & Hiv?

when you have AIDS, can you go back to HIV and then to AIDS again. One of our instructors said you could but she is stupid sometimes.

Basically your instructor is correct, but most experts do not classify the two that way. HIV is the term for the actual virus that causes immune deficiencies. As the virus (HIV) replicates, it kills off more and more T4 cells. Finally, there may come a time when a CD4 cell count will show less than 200cells/mm3. This is where the same virus becomes classified as AIDS and the body is VERY vulnerable and suseptiable to other severe diseases. With new medications though, most AIDS patients will get better on treatment and the CD4 cell count will increase again greater than 200cells/mm3. So some experts refer to this as HIV again, while others say that if it has EVER went below 200 the patient remains classified as an AIDS patient.

To my knowledge based on training from the Red Cross a few years ago, HIV just means you have the antibodies and you will eventually have AIDS itself. Once you have AIDS it is impossible to go back to HIV.

HIV is the virus itself. Even when you have AIDS, you still have HIV. AIDS is just a way of saying that your HIV has become so strong that your body is losing and it's only a matter of time at that point.

So, maybe what your instructor meant is that with medication a person can seem to be getting better, but eventually they'll get worse again.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. A person who is HIV+ is only diagnosed with AIDS once their T-Cell count goes below 250 and/or they get an opportunistic infection. Once you are diagnosed with AIDS, based on these criteria you are always considered to have AIDS. What can and very often does happen is that a person is diagnosed with AIDS and then through successful treatment they no longer get opportunistic infections and their T-Cells go back above 250. This happening does not mean that they went back to having HIV only. The AIDS diagnosis stands no matter how high their T-Cells go up.