My name is Jessie I. Snyder, I am 38 years old. I have been HIV positive for 24 years and had full-blown AIDS for 17 years. I contracted HIV in 1987 through a blood transfusion, when there was very little known about the disease. I was only 14 years old and told by my doctor that I probably wouldn’t live to see my 18th birthday. Yet here I am still alive and healthier than I have ever been.

I am going to share with you five easy steps to deal with being HIV positive.

First, remember that being HIV positive does not stop you from being who you are. You are the same person you were before you tested positive for HIV.

Second, get involved in a support group. Associating with other people who are HIV positive can help you cope with your diagnosis. They can also help you learn how to disclose to HIV status to family and friends.

Third, seek medical treatment. Getting on the right combination of medicine can help you live a productive, healthy life. Get involved with you medical treatment, ask questions, know what your CD4 counts are and what they mean and know your viral load and what that means.

Fourth, accept that you are HIV positive. Acceptance is the key to living a long, healthy life with HIV. When you are in denial you tend to not take care of yourself as well as you would if you accept that you are HIV positive. Keep a positive attitude and talk about your disease openly. Trust me you will find that this will make you feel better about yourself and be able to cope with your diagnosis.

Finally, take care of yourself. This means eating right, exercising, taking your medication as prescribed, and taking precautions when around someone who is sick, because what just makes a healthy person feel bad could ultimately kill you. Remember to keep a positive attitude. You will find that if you follow these five easy steps you can live a long, healthy and happy life with HIV.

I have been an AIDS advocate for 13 years. I have worked as a first person speaker for Nashville CARES, and appeared on two talk shows about HIV and AIDS. I just want to spread the word that AIDS doesn’t have to be a death sentence, that there is life after an AIDS diagnosis. I also tell my stories so as to put a face on this deadly disease.

I am a 38 year old, web article writer, poet, author of two books-TRUE INSPIRATIONS and SLEEPING WITH THE ANGELS; and a colllege student at Nashville State Community College where I am pursuing an Associate’s Degree in Office Administration-Medical Professional Concentration. I have been HIV positive for 24 years and had full-blown AIDS for 17 years.

The Human Papillomavirus or more commonly known as HPV is the term used for a group of more than 150 viruses. Although most of these viral infections do not manifest in humans, there are around 30 to 40 types of the virus that do which may cause the appearance of cutaneous formations like condylomas and papillomas. The name Papillomavirus derives from papillomas which in simple terms means warts. Warts may be flat, in the form of small bumps or they may also be cauliflower-shaped.

HPV infections are transferred primarily through sexual contact making the Human Papilloma Virus the leading cause of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) worldwide. In a few instances, some types of HPV infections may cause cancer. In women, it is cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina and the anus. In men, the areas most affected are the penis, the tongue, tonsils and the throat. The most common HPV strains that cause infections in the anogenital tract of humans are HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. Other HPV types like HPV-5 may still cause warts but those are likely to appear on other sensitive parts of the body rather than in the anogenital area.

The majority of people carrying HPV infections do not usually have common symptoms of the Human Papillomavirus and are usually cleared of its presence after some years. However, once a person has been infected with HPV they are still capable of transmitting HPV infections to other sexual partners. In order to tell if a person is infected, he or she has to undergo some HPV DNA tests.

HPV infections are classified into two groups: the “low-risk” HPV infections and the “high-risk” HPV infections. Low-risk HPV types include HPV-6 and HPV-11, which create abnormalities in cells and are responsible for the appearance of genital warts. These HPV types are those that are curable and the abnormalities caused by them do not turn into cancer. On the other hand, HPV-16 and HPV-18 and a few other types of HPV are termed as oncogenic, carcinogenic thus are high-risk for developing cancer. These are persistent infections causing abnormalities in cells that lead to cancers in women such as severe dysplasia of the cervix.

All sexually active people are at risk of contracting the Human Papillomavirus. Having multiple sexual partners heightens the risks of getting infected with HPV so staying in a monogamous relationship is advantageous. The Human Papillomavirus infections are commonly transmitted through skin contact and the use of condoms to protect both the male and female genital regions are not a guarantee for not becoming infected. Studies have shown however, that condoms have been associated with lowering a woman’s chances of contracting the virus and getting cervical cancer.

There is no medical treatment to cure the Human Papilomavirus itself, however there are methods to remove common warts, genital warts or cervical lesions caused by various types of the HPV infections.

Cryosurgery or freezing, loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) and conization are just some of these methods. The last two involve the removal of tissue from the affected area. There are drugs available for treating genital warts as well.

Two vaccines have been developed and approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for general use. Gardasil® and Cervarix® have proven to be effective against HPV infections particularly in treating high-risk HPVs such as HPV-16 and HPV-18.

Apart from various methods of wart removal treatments mentioned above it is important to keep your immune system healthy. High immune resistance will naturally fight the presence of HPV infections in your body therefore eliminating the appearance of warts.

In the thirty years since HIV forced itself into the world’s consciousness, the goal has become to find a cure for the disease. It almost seemed inevitable that a vaccine or cure would be found someday, especially when it was discovered that the cause of the opportunistic infections was indeed a virus. In fact, improvements in antiretroviral therapy (ART) over the years have made it so HIV-positive people can live relatively normal lives with an undetectable viral load. his progress is important, because it brings the scientific community one step closer to finding a cure for HIV.

New hope for a cure emerged after the Berlin Patient was discovered. The patient, an HIV-positive man who also suffered from leukemia, was given a bone marrow transplant. The marrow donor was a person with a very rare genetic mutation that renders the person practically immune, or at very least highly resistant to acquiring HIV. This mutation, known as CCR5-delta-32, removes the coreceptor that HIV uses to enter the cells. Several years later, the patient is HIV-free, with no signs of the virus. Such a story is quite the medical breakthrough, but scientists and doctors have been very cautious.

The successful transplant raised questions as to whether gene therapy could help. The goal is to genetically alter cells by attempting to mimic the genetic mutation in some way. Zinc finger nucleases were developed to delete the CCR5 receptor gene from the cells, which would make those cells resistant to HIV infection. In order to test this theory, a study was conducted consisting of six patients with long persisting HIV infection. The patients had blood drawn from them and the CD4 T-cells were removed. Those cells were then given the zinc finger procedure to remove the CCR5 receptor gene.

These treated cells were then reinserted back into the patients’ bodies. The result? Five of the six patients experienced a significant CD4 cell increase, averaging about 200 cells each. This approach could make it possible for HIV-positive patients to stay off of antiretroviral therapy medication for longer periods of time. Using gene therapy is giving researchers hope that it may be the key to finding a cure for HIV. Other methods such as reducing or eliminating HIV reservoirs are being looked into as well. HIV has reached a milestone of sorts, having been the catalyst for 30 years of research in trying to slow it down or eradicate it. Progress has been made, but the quest toward a cure continues.

In the 1980′s, growing old with HIV seemed like a fairytale, and the immediate goal of all HIV/AIDS research was to extend the lives of patients. However, with today’s antiretrovirals and other treatments, over half the HIV-infected population in the United States is over forty years old. It’s good news that those with this condition are living longer. However, the quality of life lived is compromised by the effects of HIV/AIDS. It is becoming apparent that accelerated aging with HIV can, in effect, add over ten years to the actual age of the patient. In 2010, this subject was address by multiple experts in RITA, a publication of The Center for AIDS Information and Advocacy. It appears that there is a stair-step effect from physical problems to emotional and cognitive problems.

Individuals infected with HIV have a higher risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, broken bones, and other illnesses. This physical health risk can prevent what seems like a lifelong obstacle course laid out before patients who are dealing with physical issues that should be a decade or more away. With one challenge arising after another, discouragement, depression, and anxiety can diminish hardiness. Hardiness is basically the perception that difficulties are challenges to be fought rather than overwhelming obstacles which stop you in your tracks. Accelerated aging with HIV moves from physical to emotional and cognitive with the decline of hardiness.

Emotional and cognitive aging are entwined in the accelerated aging with HIV. Patients may find themselves forgetting things often or having to think through the steps to complete a task over again. One possible reason for this is a lack of healthy sleep patterns. Healthy sleep amounts and routines promote cognitive processing. Depression and anxiety, as well as sickness, undermine the ability to sleep, exacerbating cognitive problems. Fatigue, lack of social and/or cognitive stimulation can also contribute to the neurocognitive aging effect of HIV.

However, each person’s progress must be measured individually because a 50-year-old who has the heart of a 65-year-old is not necessarily infected with HIV. Other factors, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, using recreational drugs, excessive weight, a sedentary lifestyle, and genetics also play a large part in aging both physically and mentally. These factors will also have an effect on the accelerated aging with HIV that infected patients experience. Experts recommend improve the overall lifestyle health, social interaction, and cognitive stimulation to combat the aging effects while scientists search for new ways to find a complete cure for HIV/AIDS.