HIV/AIDS, I don't get it?

i understand completely how you get them, but i dont understand what it does to you (other than kill you) i dont understand which is worse, i dont understand the difference between hiv and aids, and i dont... well jeeze, i just dont get the whole lot of it. i need someone to explain to me, in a not-straight-out-of-the-dictionary-way, STUFF about hiv/aids, because i feel like i know nothing about it.

HIV is a virus that infects and destroys the cells of your immune system, and procreates itself so that it takes over your body and continues to spread. Since it destroys your immune system, you are more susceptible to infections.

Small infections that would normally go unnoticed because your immune system would fight them off, or you would take medicine and get over, all of a sudden are life-threatening. The common cold, an ear infection.... anything takes a complete toll on your body because the HIV virus has destroyed your body's ability to fight illnesses.

AIDS is when HIV has developed to the point where you have a collection of symptoms and infections due to your severely debilitated immune system.


so that's how AIDS actually kills you... not directly, but by completely destroying your body's ability to fight something as little as a cold.

HIV is a virus (it stands for human immunodeficiency virus). It causes the disease known as AIDS (which stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). What the virus does is destroy the immune system making it difficult to fight infection. This makes people with HIV susceptible to infections. Infections that ordinary people would not get will develop in people with HIV because their immune system is weakened. HIV eventually causes dementia, some cancers and infectious diseases which is what they eventually die of. There are medications which can slow the viral production but there is no cure as of yet.

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is a retrovirus. A typical virus will inject it's genetic material into a cell causing the cell to cease normal function and replicate more viruses to the point where it explodes releasing more viruses into the body. A retrovirus integrates its genetic material into the cell and it actually fuses with the cell's DNA. The cell continues it's normal functions and every time it replicates, it replicates the HIV virus along with it. These cells typically do not last as long as they should and die early. As the HIV integrates into more and more cells, it trips the sensors on the white blood cells which begin killing off the infected cells. Between the cells dying before they should and the immune system killing them off, you begin to lose many of your white blood cells in your system faster than your body can make them leading to AIDS. AIDS stand for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and it is characterized by a weakened immune system and an inability to fight off infection. The difference in the two is that HIV is the virus, and AIDS is caused by the virus. People who die from AIDS usually die from an infection they got that they weren't able to fight off.