Anyone here used HIV/AIDS treatment for CFS?

[barbc56]

I did not refer to blood infections but to lymphatic tissue of the digestive tube being destroyed. How many diseases present this?

Does this happen with ME/CFS? Never heard of this.

Two separate health conditions can have the same symptoms, though I'm not sure you are technically talking about symptoms. Maybe disease manifestations, mechanisms, etiology or pathogenesis? Can someone with more medical experience than I have, step in with the correct word that would describe this process sorin's describing.

If you're referrering to symptons, here is a citation about different diseases causing the same symptoms as HIV. That's why some diseases are diagnosed by excluding other health conditions.

http://www.thebody.com/content/76624/which-diseases-cause-the-same-symptoms-as-hiv.html34

 

[sorin]

For people who think that HIV testing available today is reliable,definitive and irrefutable, one question:
How do you explain the Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (ICL), referred as non-HIV AIDS?
http://www.autoimmune.com/Non-HIVAIDSGen.html
What is the cause of this disease?
In my humble opinion there are 2 possible explanations:

• either the HIV tests gives false negatives for these persons
• either it's a HIV related virus (a virus from the same family with HIV)

 

[barbc56]

For people who think that HIV testing available today is reliable,definitive and irrefutable, one question:
How do you explain the Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (ICL), referred as non-HIV AIDS?
http://www.autoimmune.com/Non-HIVAIDSGen.html
What is the cause of this disease?
In my humble opinion there are 2 possible explanations:

• either the HIV tests gives false negatives for these persons
• either it's a HIV related virus (a virus from the same family with HIV)

There is no health condtion called non-HIV AIDS. It's a made up disease created by AIDS denialist.

Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (ICL) is a separate health condition most likely not caused by a virus.

Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia (ICL) is a very rare medical syndrome in which the body has too few CD4+T lymphocytes, which are a kind of white blood cell.[1]ICL is sometimes characterized as "HIV-negative AIDS" by AIDS denialists, though in fact its clinical presentation differs from that seen with HIV/AIDS.[2] People with ICL have a weakened immune system and are susceptible to opportunistic infections, although the rate of infections is lower than in people with AIDS

This premise that HIV-negative AIDS exists is faulty which calls into question any conclusions generated from it.

HIV-AIDS has been studied for several decades and we now have a much better understanding how it works. Technology has also progressed to the point that something would have been found that showing HIV-negative AIDS is a medical condition.

There is no credible scientific proof that HIV-negative AIDS exists and in my opinion, it's pretty much a moot point even trying to debate this. Others may think differently.

 

[sorin]

This premise that HIV-negative AIDS exists is faulty which calls into question any conclusions generated from it.

How do you know that HIV-negative AIDS does not exist? How do you explain the decreasing of CD4 cells for ICL patients? What destroys CD4 cells in these ICL patients?

 

[Hip]

How do you explain the decreasing of CD4 cells for ICL patients?

So far, there is no explanation. That's why it is called idiopathic. It is thought that there is no one cause: it is believed that ICL "encompasses different disorders that have in common a reduction of CD4 cell numbers" Ref: 1

One study found that the CD4 cells were dying prematurely through apoptosis, thus explaining their low numbers.

Some people with ICL have no symptoms at all; others can have serious opportunistic infections, cancers, or find that their ICL triggers autoimmune diseases. Ref: 1

ICL is a very rare disease.



Lots of acute infections can cause transient low CD4 counts, including enterovirus, Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus infections.

Chronic low CD4 counts have been found in HIV-negative patients with chronic Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus infections (ref: here); the CD4 counts improved when patients were given antivirals such as valganciclovir.

Low CD4 counts are found in the very elderly, in the ICL range, and marathon runners can develop low CD4. In both cases, people remain healthy.



It is the AIDS denialists who tend to call ICL "HIV-negative AIDS," so unless you want to associate yourself with the AIDS denialist bullshit, it's best not to use the phrase "HIV-negative AIDS."

 

[sorin]

ICL is a very rare disease.

It is said that 1% of people with AIDS are HIV negative. So it is not so rare.

 

[Hip]

It is said that 1% of people with AIDS are HIV negative. So it is not so rare.

Your weblink says:

Non-HIV AIDS patients may comprise perhaps one percent of all AIDS patients.

The fact that this company Autoimmune Technologies LLC are using the word "perhaps" in that sentence makes it sound like they are just guessing, and I doubt their figure is correct. But even if that figure were correct, the prevalence of HIV infection in the US population is around 0.6% (ref: 1). So one hundredth of that is a prevalence of 0.006% for ICL.

So even if Autoimmune Technologies LLC figure is correct, that means that in the US, around 19,000 people will have ICL. In the US, a disease is defined as rare when it affects fewer than 200,000 Americans (ref: 1). So that makes ICL very rare, by the definition of a rare disease.



But I don't think Autoimmune Technologies LLC's figure is correct, as in this study, they say:

ICL was first described in 1989 in case reports of severe opportunistic infections and CD4 lymphocytopenia in HIV-negative patients in the U.S. and abroad.

In 1992, the CDC named and defined the disease and assembled a task force that reviewed the 230,179 reported AIDS cases. From this, 47 patients with ICL were identified, 40% of which had AIDS-defining illnesses, 53% had conditions that were not AIDS-defining, and only 6% were asymptomatic.

So the CDC found 47 ICL patients out of 230,179 reported AIDS cases, which means that only 0.02% of those with AIDS symptoms have ICL.

Which then means that in the general population, the prevalence of ICL is only 0.0002%, which is very, very rare.

 

[barbc56]

When it's reported that the fourth generation IV test, is 99.2%* accurate, that does not mean the others tested have HIV negative AIDS. It simply means that the test misses .08 % of cases. This is why other tests and/or repeated tests are given. When you do these, the chances that the test hasn't picked up the virus is almost nil.

http://www.aidsmap.com/Large-US-study-shows-which-HIV-tests-are-most-accurate/page/2812847

*I read percentages of 99.2% to 99.5%. I chose the lowest percentage.

You are more likely to get a false positive. This can occur especially with the tests looking at antibodies, as they may react with other antibodies. A list of health conditions known to create a false positive is here. I was surprised to learn that pregnancy may cause a false positive HIV test. There's also a possibility that a test kit may be contaminated.

I would be very wary of Autoimmune Technologies LLC' as a source. They inaccurately defined ICL as HIV negative AIDS, and they offer a test for Fibromyalgia which is only considered an experimental test. So who knows how reliable as far as other information on the site.

 

[mrmichaelfreedmen]

Hello all!

Is anyone here (HIV negative) that used HIV treatment for CFS?
If yes, please provide what specific medicament(s) you took, what dosage, for how long.
How you felt during the treatment, and what was the result?

Thank you
Sorin

Pointless question. Dr John Chia has mentioned that HIV drugs do not work on EV infections, also that his patients with HIV have not improved there CFS/ME while taking HIV medications.

 

[sorin]

Pointless question. Dr John Chia has mentioned that HIV drugs do not work on EV infections, also that his patients with HIV have not improved there CFS/ME while taking HIV medications.

I suppose that there are other doctors on this planet that have other opinions that Dr. Chia.

 

[sorin]

When it's reported that the fourth generation IV test, is 99.2%* accurate, that does not mean the others tested have HIV negative AIDS. It simply means that the test misses .08 % of cases. This is why other tests and/or repeated tests are given. When you do these, the chances that the test hasn't picked up the virus is almost nil.

http://www.aidsmap.com/Large-US-study-shows-which-HIV-tests-are-most-accurate/page/2812847

*I read percentages of 99.2% to 99.5%. I chose the lowest percentage.

You are more likely to get a false positive. This can occur especially with the tests looking at antibodies, as they may react with other antibodies. A list of health conditions known to create a false positive is here. I was surprised to learn that pregnancy may cause a false positive HIV test. There's also a possibility that a test kit may be contaminated.

I would be very wary of Autoimmune Technologies LLC' as a source. They inaccurately defined ICL as HIV negative AIDS, and they offer a test for Fibromyalgia which is only considered an experimental test. So who knows how reliable as far as other information on the site.

@barbc56
Quoting from the page you cited: "Overall, the researchers estimate that 96.6% of all people with HIV in this setting would be correctly diagnosed with this test"
This is about 4-th generation tests, the ones that are used today. So the rest of 3.4% of people with HIV would not be diagnosed, they would receive a "negative" result and will be considered healthy. And that stops here, because someone who is told that is healthy and does not have HIV - will not test again. So what happens with these 3.4% of people - do not they fit logically in the non-HIV AIDS category?

 

[halcyon]

Dr John Chia has mentioned that HIV drugs do not work on EV infections, also that his patients with HIV have not improved there CFS/ME while taking HIV medications.

Where did you hear that? I know of several people, including myself, that have improved on lamivudine under his care. Lamivudine is not strictly an HIV drug, however.

 

[Hip]

Where did you hear that? I know of several people, including myself, that have improved on lamivudine under his care. Lamivudine is not strictly an HIV drug, however.

If I remember rightly, I think I heard this in one of Dr Chia's videos, possibly one of his "MECFS Alert" video interviews (many of his videos are found here), where he mentioned that he has some patients that are on anti-retroviral drugs for HIV, but these drugs did not at all help the patients' ME/CFS.


Having said that, Dr Jamie Deckoff-Jones found that the HIV drug tenofovir (Viread) would have a relatively immediate beneficial effect on her ME/CFS symptoms (but this is likely nothing to do with any retroviruses, and more to do with the fact that tenofovir can reduce inflammation — see this post).

The antiretroviral drug raltegravir (Isentress) also used by Dr Jamie Deckoff-Jones fights herpes family viruses, which have been linked to ME/CFS (see this post).


Lamivudine (Epivir) does have efficacy against HIV, but also against hepatitis B virus, and Dr Chia believes it may work against enteroviruses.

I have some lamivudine on my shelf in front of me, which I will be trying soon.

 

[sorin]

@barbc56
Quoting from the page you cited: "Overall, the researchers estimate that 96.6% of all people with HIV in this setting would be correctly diagnosed with this test"
This is about 4-th generation tests, the ones that are used today. So the rest of 3.4% of people with HIV would not be diagnosed, they would receive a "negative" result and will be considered healthy. And that stops here, because someone who is told that is healthy and does not have HIV - will not test again. So what happens with these 3.4% of people - do not they fit logically in the non-HIV AIDS category?

@barbc56 - saw that you did not disagree with my answer above. Another false idea from the official propaganda is that HIV tests can give more false positives that false negatives. Reading again from the document you first cited, namely http://www.aidsmap.com/Large-US-study-shows-which-HIV-tests-are-most-accurate/page/2812847
You can see here for all devices that specificity is higher than sensitivity, and specificity is almost 100% - that means that for healthy people (without HIV infection) there is no chance 0% or 0.1% that the device says you are positive. Instead the sensitivity values shows that for infected people there are considerable chances (1%) that the device gives a false negative and says you are healthy!

 

[barbc56]

@sorin

You have misinterpreted what I've said as well as the rationale used to show hiv negative AIDS does not exist.

The scenarios you illustrate are not the reality of what happens. You don't get just get one test. There are several test given to get the most accurate diagnosis. This is standard medical practice.

It's not my intent to change anyone's mind. I've simply given my interpretation of the HIV negative AIDS issue. Take what you want from it.

I don't see how further discussion will be productive.

 

[JES]

I agree with above, I don't see the logical link between "HIV negative AIDS" and HIV that hasn't (yet) been detected in a test. This is the same as inventing a disease like "Borrelia negative Lyme", because the Borrelia blood tests are not very reliable. Obviously there is no such disease either, it's simply that no test is 100% sensitive for any marker. But after enough repeated tests or when the disease has progressed for long enough, HIV will be detected, I would assume in close to 100% of cases.

 

[Daffodil]

i always have had high CD8. my specialist says that means virus. i am better thanks to years of antibiotics but why is my CD8 still always high?

too many things here not making sense.....pointing to virus. always pointing to virus. maybe i am treating the downstream effects of active borrelia or leaky gut or whatever....but i got this immediately after i contracted an acute flu-like illness. the exact same type of illness retroviruses cause.

i have pushed it to the back of my mind now, but if i stop to put the pieces together, everything screams virus.

i pray i am wrong

 

[Hip]

the exact same type of illness retroviruses cause.

And the exact same acute flu-like illness that many other viruses cause, including the virus most strongly linked to ME/CFS (in terms of the many studies performed), enterovirus.

 

[sorin]

i always have had high CD8. my specialist says that means virus.

In my case is the same. I have high CD8 (about 1000) which makes the ratio CD4/CD8=0.7 < 1 which is outside the normal range (>1). Also, the specialist says I have high activity against of a virus (unknown actually). Then, all the docs I found on the net about high CD8 and inversed ratio of CD4/CD8 were related to HIV. Also I have very very high sCD14 values, and all references I have found about such high values were linked to HIV infection. I did in the last 6 years about 6 or 7 HIV tests at various labs, all indicating negative, but what is absolutely perplexing is that other indicators (such as CD8, CD4/CD8<1, high sCD14, etc) are common with HIV. This is something that is hard to explain...But medicine is not Mathematics, is not even Science, so I am afraid that everything illogical is possible here... Just because they lack scientific rigor of Mathematics. Definitely won't hurt if more mathematicians would be involved in Medicine, that would be a big plus and a big gain for this empirical field of Medicine.

 

[halcyon]

i always have had high CD8. my specialist says that means virus. i am better thanks to years of antibiotics but why is my CD8 still always high?

I've had high CD8 and I have a persistent enterovirus infection. Have you been tested properly for these viruses?