Hi

I have never had anything to do with HIV, but tonight I was told that my sister in law has it. I am shattered as she is probably the gentlest and most lovely person I have ever met.

She is healthy now but I guess she will decline over time.

Is there anything I can do to help as I am shattered to hear her problem. She doesn't know I know but I would like to help.

I don't know how she contracted it.

Thanks.

Ohh yeah I understand some blokes will want to bang out crap..no probs, just don't expect me to respond.

Cheers

Talk to her and give her the right information as much as you can, this is a controllable disease to date and all the new ARV is very effective and much less side effect than decade ago. You can live almost a normal life only have to be very faithfully taking the meds and avoid any bad habit that might reinfected yourself with different strain and avoid bad behavior.

She obviously needs to go see doctor, get all her baseline lab work done like CD4, viral load and if the viral load is high, the genotype testing would also a good idea, initial metabolic

panel will help for future follow up once she on the ARV.

Psychological support and understanding are very important for this diagnosis in my opinion.

Sorry to hear that. I do know that western countries are pretty clued up on the whole procedure of when somebody is diagnosed as HIV positive, and offer all sorts of support information. I assume she was told about this back in Australia? If so, she will probably be ahead of things already and may even refer you to such organisations if you require. Last year I chose to have a full test for everything, and of course armed myself with some information in the even that there may be a HIV + result. Searching the web for information, that is where I discovered that there are a plethora of official support websites or web communitys for HIV positive people, laying down the facts and giving support.

For example, a quick web search for Australia shows :

http://napwha.org.au/living-hiv

Aussieroaming,

If she lives in Bangkok, get her to Red Cross Anonoumous Clinic Stat!