• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Antiretrovirals?

Sparrowhawk

Senior Member
Messages
514
Location
West Coast USA
Good question, I know at least one HIV+ person who got to zero virus detected on antivirals but he still takes them, so I have to assume that you put your finger on the issue. It's not a cure it is a mitigating therapy?
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
i would be tempted to try isentress if the dam thing was cheap but its like $1000 a month. The problem with anything antiviral is they dont kill the virus but just lower the viral load so we need an immune system to take over once the antiviral does the job??
You may have a mistaken idea of how antibiotics work as well. Most of the time they don't kill all the relevant bacteria. What happens is that they kill large numbers, and the fragments of these end up in lymph nodes, where the immune system decides which ones are responsible for the problem. This works pretty well when you are dealing with rapidly replicating bacteria in the bloodstream. The immune response is directed toward the unusual bacteria killed by the antibiotic. If the patient's immune system is weakened, antibiotic treatment can fail. Raising the dose to the point it completely wipes out all bacteria is likely to kill the patient.

When talking about viruses you have another problem: viruses (virions) are not living in the first place. They have no metabolism of their own. Many can be crystallized and stored like salt. A viral infection is a process, not a thing. (The logical error of confusing processes or abstractions with things is called reification.) All you can hope to do is interrupt a pathological process and allow a more useful healing process to succeed. If you don't have processes constantly restoring you to health you are dead. The difference between processes and things is the difference between the quick and the dead.
 

Sparrowhawk

Senior Member
Messages
514
Location
West Coast USA
You may have a mistaken idea of how antibiotics work as well.....[snip] ...If you don't have processes constantly restoring you to health you are dead. The difference between processes and things is the difference between the quick and the dead.

That's all new information to me, thanks again for such clarity.