Should I Get an HIV Test?

It is suggested that a person not only be tested at last once in their lifetime before having actual sexual intercourse, but also that a person is tested after intercourse and when they are between sexual partners. A person can have HIV and not know this or a person could have a partner that has it and end up having it be sexually transmitted to them. This does not mean that HIV is sexually transmitted even if you have sexual intercourse with a person with HIV, but it does mean that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus can be sexually transmitted.

The Different Types of HIV Tests

There are two different types of tests and they are both taken different ways. These are blood tests where your blood is drawn and tested. The nucleic acid test where a cotton swab takes a sample from the back of your throat and is tested. While the blood test is thought to be more accurate than the cotton swab test there are still only around 13.2% of the people who test positive for the ELISA test that end up actually having HIV. This is why there is not only the ELISA test, which is the initial test to see if you have HIV, but there is also Western Blot test.

The Western Blot test came into existence simply to be able to confirm the results of any HIV test are correct or not. There are many cases where another type of virus or something else can also cause the test to signal positive. There even have been cases where someone with the cold has had the test indicate a positive result, until the Western Blot test was given and showed the results to be inaccurate. This unfortunately is a problem that cannot be fixed very easily because of lack of advances when it comes to HIV and AIDS.

The Difference Between HIV and AIDS

While many people think that AIDS is a much worse type of HIV, it has been found that they are very different. While AIDS is a syndrome HIV is a virus. This alone can tell you how different they are. Both are very seriously detrimental and you are only able to contract AIDS if you have HIV because it is what lowers the T-cell count so that AIDS is able to get into a person’s system. It is for this reason, a person needs to be tested so that HIV can be found early and therefore it will be easier for a person to fight back against its deterioration of their body.

When a person has caught HIV in its earlier stages, they have more of a chance of being able to fight back for a longer period. When you have HIV you have it for the rest of your life, which at this time is unable to change because a cure has not been found. Yet, you are still able to try and fight it and help other people with the same virus deal with in as a part of their life.

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