Alternative Medicine for HIV and AIDS Patients

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Many people who get affected by HIV or AIDS use complementary and alternative medicine and treatment methods along with traditional medicine to gain better health and well-being in times of agony. Although not to a great extent, some symptoms of AIDS are said to be relieved by such treatments. While many people prefer these methods as an additional treatment to their deteriorating health, others look up to it as a futile step. But that doesn’t prove that these methods are ineffective; neither does it mean that these medicines can cure or treat such conditions in humans.

Side effects of these medicines are also unknown to this day, making the patients quite skeptical about the effectiveness of these treatment methods. Also, some medicines, though natural, can be unsafe for consumption since they could interact with other medications and bring about further trouble to the health conditions. Healthcare providers are to be informed if you are interested in trying the alternative treatment method in order to manage your symptoms. Here are a few alternative methods that can be used for HIV patients.

Body Therapies

Yoga and Massage Therapy

Some people have experienced an alleviation of pain after taking yoga or massage therapy sessions, and research has proven that yoga could further help the AIDS patients in reducing depression and anxiety and improving feelings of overall health. Levels of CD4 cells are also said to improve with these body therapies, and with the increase in these immune cells that were attacked by HIV, the patients grow stronger and a lot more immune to several other diseases.

Acupuncture

This ancient Chinese medical practice is a method of releasing chemicals in the body to relieve you of the pain. Acupuncture involves placing thin, solid needles into different parts of the body that are pressure points, and it can help HIV affected patients with several treatment side effects and nausea.

Accupunture

Relaxation Therapies

Anxiety can be reduced to a great extent by taking up various forms or relaxation treatment and meditation, and it would also help in coping with the stresses related to chronic illness.

Herbal Medicine

Although herbs haven’t been proven to have the power to relieve HIV symptoms, several people use such medications hoping for better health conditions. However, you need to use these herbal medications with caution since it could impact on different people differently. Since an improvement in liver functions are recorded, and no significant interactions are made with antivirals, milk thistle is considered to be an effective herb in the treatment of HIV. Other herbs could, however, interact with the conventional HIV treatments to affect your already deteriorating health. So, you must inform your healthcare provider about the consumption of such herbs, which will allow them to monitor for any possible side effects or drug interactions.

Herbal

Helpful Supplements for People with HIV

  • Bone health could be improved using vitamin D and calcium
  • Cholesterol can be reduced with fish oil
  • Progression of HIV slowed by selenium
  • Vitamin B-12 would be helpful in time of pregnancies
  • Weight gain can be backed by soy or whey protein

Treatment for HIV or AIDS

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AIDS, as you all might know, is a disease that has always frightened the people with its deadly claws that cling onto the body of humans to attack the CD4 immune cells. Not many people might know the technical side of the disease since it isn’t an area that is constantly under discussion. Medicine is not of great interest for many people as well, but the people who get infected by the disease will surely check through the various possibilities to recover from it. The dear and near ones of the patients are also equally into the fight against the virus.

Treatment methods are constantly being searched by such people so that a healthier life is lead with the virus eating up the immune cells. As these cells within a human body are being attacked, the people being affected will start having recurrent fever, chronic fatigue, night sweats, bumps and rashes on the skin, chronic swollen lymph glands, sores and spots on tongue and genitals, and dark splotches inside eyelids, mouth, and nose. There are a few treatment methods that can help the patients get better with time; a complete recovery for AIDS is not possible. Let us have a look at the various treatment options for HIV.

Treatment Options

Every infected person should make sure to get treatment as soon as they are diagnosed with the virus. No matter how loaded the virus is in a person’s body, treatment is essential to control the malicious spread. Antiretroviral therapy is the main treatment for HIV, and it is a combination of daily medications that curb the reproduction of the virus. The CD4 cells are protected this way, keeping the immune system strong to combat the disease.

This therapy will help in keeping HIV from building up to AIDS. Transmission risks are also reduced by taking the therapy. Once you are an HIV patient, you will need to keep taking the sessions of antiretroviral therapy to stop the growth of the virus. If the treatment turns out to be effective, the virus will remain undetectable in tests. But if the person stops taking therapy, the virus that still exists in the body will begin to multiply and attack the CD4 cells.

 

Disease Effects

Medications

The immune system is helped by various medications to fight the incoming and existing virus in the body. Developing complications can be brought down to risk-free limits by taking the antiretroviral therapy medications which include six classes such as protease inhibitors, fusion inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, integrase strand transfer inhibitors, and entry inhibitors (CCR5 antagonists). The regimen that is best to start with is of three HIV medications from two drug classes. Other medications are combined with the antiretroviral regimens to allow a person with HIV to take only one or two pills daily. Personal circumstances and overall health of a person have to be considered before deciding on a particular regimen. Therefore, when consulting a healthcare provider, all these have to mentioned in order to fix a certain regimen for your disease.