SYMPTOMS OF AIDS
Many people who become newly infected with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) may show no signs or symptoms. Within two to four weeks of infection a person may develop a flu-like illness that may subside within days to weeks on its own without any medical intervention. The common symptoms of this flu-like illness include headache, fever, sore throat, rash and swollen lymph nodes. The initial subsiding flu-like illness is known as the HIV Syndrome. After the initial episode of HIV Syndrome a person can be asymptomatic anywhere from a few months to periods extending to almost 10 years. At this time even though an individual is asymptomatic the virus is continuously causing damage to the person's immune system.
As the virus multiplies and progresses more chronic symptoms appear to include swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, unexplained weight loss, persistent cough and night sweats. Unexplained skin rashes or bumps, white spots on the tongue and mouth and chronic unexplained fatigue are all symptoms that should warrant consultation with a medical professional. Those at risk for HIV disease should receive regular HIV testing because even though no signs or symptoms may be present during the dormant period, AIDS is present in seminal and vaginal secretions and the blood making possible to transmit the disease to others.
While the symptoms may at first seem, acute or mistaken for other viral infections, the AIDS virus is destroying the CD4+ (T4 cells) of the immune system. The primary purpose of the T4 cells is to fight against invasion from foreign organisms, such as bacteria and viruses. AIDS is the advanced stage of HIV disease when a person's T4 cells count has fallen below 200 cells per micro liter of blood, leaving their body unable to fight against infection.
AIDS weakens the immune system thus leaving AIDS patients more susceptible to opportunistic infections that to most healthy individuals would not warrant great complications or alarm. Opportunistic infections known to infect AIDS patients with weakened immune systems can include but are not limited to pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, mycobacterium avium complex infections, fungal infections of histoplasmosis, and esophageal yeast infections.
Symptoms of advanced AIDS include seizures, painful swallowing, mental confusion, loss of vision, nausea, abdominal cramping, severe headaches and shortness of breath. Other symptoms commonly associated with AIDS are Kaposi sarcoma, cervical cancers and lymphatic cancers of the immune system. Visual symptoms of Kaposi sarcoma can be observed on the skin or in the mouth of people infected with AIDS and are characterized as being spots round in shape with brown to reddish-purple coloring.