How To Find Out If I Have Hiv

You can't rely on symptoms to tell if you have HIV. The only way to know for sure is to get tested!

How Tin can You Tell If You Have HIV?

The only style to know for sure if y'all have HIV is to become tested. You tin can't rely on symptoms to tell whether you accept HIV.

Knowing your HIV status gives you powerful information so you can have steps to proceed yourself and your partner(s) healthy:

If you test positive, you tin can accept medicine to care for HIV. Past taking HIV medicine daily as prescribed, you can make the amount of HIV in your blood (your viral load) very low—then low that a test tin can't discover it (chosen an undetectable viral load). Getting and keeping an undetectable viral load is the all-time thing you tin practice to stay healthy. If your viral load stays undetectable, you lot have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative partner through sexual practice.
If you lot test negative, at that place are more HIV prevention tools bachelor today than ever before.
If yous are pregnant, you should be tested for HIV and then that yous tin can begin treatment if you're HIV-positive. If an HIV-positive adult female is treated for HIV early on in her pregnancy, the risk of transmitting HIV to her infant can be very low.

Use the HIV Services Locator to find an HIV testing site nearly you.

HIV self-testing is as well an pick. Self-testing allows people to take an HIV test and find out their issue in their own habitation or other private location. You can buy a self-test kit at a pharmacy or online, or your health care provider may exist able to order one for you. Some wellness departments or community-based organizations besides provide self-exam kits for free.

What Are the Symptoms of HIV?

There are several symptoms of HIV. Not everyone will accept the same symptoms. It depends on the person and what stage of the disease they are in.

Below are the three stages of HIV and some of the symptoms people may feel.

Stage 1: Astute HIV Infection

Within 2 to four weeks afterward infection with HIV, most two-thirds of people will have a influenza-similar affliction. This is the body's natural response to HIV infection.

Flu-like symptoms tin can include:

Fever
Chills
Rash
Night sweats
Muscle aches
Sore throat
Fatigue
Swollen lymph nodes
Mouth ulcers

These symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks. But some people do not accept whatsoever symptoms at all during this early on phase of HIV.

Get tested as soon as possible! Find a HIV testing site near you: Locator.HIV.gov

Don't presume you have HIV just considering yous have any of these symptoms—they tin can be similar to those caused by other illnesses. But if yous think you may have been exposed to HIV, become an HIV test.

Here's what to do:

Discover an HIV testing site near you lot—You can become an HIV test at your primary intendance provider's office, your local health section, a wellness clinic, or many other places. Use the HIV Services Locator to detect an HIV testing site near you.
Request an HIV examination for recent infection—Most HIV tests observe antibodies (proteins your body makes equally a reaction to HIV), not HIV itself. But information technology can have a few weeks afterward you're infected for your body to produce them. There are other types of tests that can discover HIV infection sooner. Tell your doctor or dispensary if you remember you were recently exposed to HIV, and inquire if their tests can detect early on infection.
Know your status—After y'all get tested, be sure to learn your test results. If you're HIV-positive, see a doctor as before long equally possible and then yous tin start treatment with HIV medicine. And exist enlightened: when y'all are in the early stage of infection, you are at very high hazard of transmitting HIV to others. It is important to take steps to reduce your take chances of transmission. If yous are HIV-negative, there are prevention tools like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) that can help y'all stay negative.

Stage two: Clinical Latency

In this stage, the virus withal multiplies, but at very low levels. People in this stage may not feel ill or have whatsoever symptoms. This stage is too called chronic HIV infection.

Without HIV treatment, people can stay in this phase for 10 or 15 years, only some move through this stage faster.

If y'all have HIV medicine every day, exactly as prescribed and become and keep an undetectable viral load, you can protect your wellness and have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to your sexual partner(s).

Just if your viral load is detectable, you can transmit HIV during this phase, even when you have no symptoms. Information technology'south of import to see your health care provider regularly to get your viral load checked.

Stage 3: AIDS

If you lot take HIV and you are not on HIV treatment, eventually the virus volition weaken your body's immune system and you will progress to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). This is the belatedly phase of HIV infection.

Symptoms of AIDS tin can include:

Rapid weight loss
Recurring fever or profuse night sweats
Extreme and unexplained tiredness
Prolonged swelling of the lymph glands in the armpits, groin, or neck
Diarrhea that lasts for more than a week
Sores of the mouth, anus, or genitals
Pneumonia
Crimson, chocolate-brown, pink, or purplish blotches on or under the peel or inside the mouth, nose, or eyelids
Retention loss, depression, and other neurologic disorders

Each of these symptoms can also exist related to other illnesses. The merely way to know for sure if yous have HIV is to get tested. If you are HIV-positive, a health intendance provider volition diagnose if your HIV has progressed to stage 3 (AIDS) based on certain medical criteria.

Many of the astringent symptoms and illnesses of HIV disease come from the opportunistic infections that occur because your body'due south allowed system has been damaged. See your health care provider if you are experiencing whatsoever of these symptoms.

Read more about the difference between HIV and AIDS.