HIV Symptoms

Symptoms > HIV Symptoms

HIV symptoms can vary from person to person. HIV symptoms can also be found in a person who does not have HIV-because the same symptoms appear in infections such as mononucleosis (more commonly called mono) and hepatitis.

But the best thing for anyone who suspects he or she has been infected by HIV and therefore is possibly experiencing HIV symptoms is to make a doctor's appointment to be tested.

The first HIV symptoms usually appear as the symptoms of a cold or flu virus would: a person can have a fever, a headache, a sore throat, and swollen glands, and will feel great fatigue/exhaustion (all of the classic symptoms of mono, so you see what I mean).

But conversely, a person who has been infected might also not experience all of the early HIV symptoms or might feel some but not as intensely. It varies from person to person.

But as it is with the insidious nature of AIDS, HIV symptoms can be what medical professionals call non-specific, and therefore are a poor way to diagnose if a person has actually been infected with the virus. Even more insidious is the fact that even if a person is infected, if he or she has just recently acquired the infection, he or she is in what is called a "window period"-a stage that ranges from 2 weeks to 6 months and that is the period of time ranging from the initial infection time and time that this person's immune system begins to develop antibodies to fight the HIV. So immediate testing might be ineffective-if he or she is in the window.

According to medical experts and HIV scientists, initial HIV symptoms pass and the infected person usually will then not feel any further symptoms for 8 to 10 years. But the infected person should not neglect and therefore leave HIV untreated: if he or she does so, AIDS will take over where HIV left off. And those symptoms, as we all know, are miserable and deadly.