Most HIV patients find there is not a large variety when it comes to the choice of which HIV drug to use. In the majority of cases, it will be up to the doctor to decide which HIV drug will work best according to your current stage of therapy. However, as many HIV patients learn more about the disease, they learn there are alternative options. If a HIV drug causes stomach upset or headaches, there are other medicines that can help with these side effects. HIV patients do not have to be miserable.
Many scientists are hopeful that a HIV vaccine will soon be discovered. At this stage, there are three things doctors are hoping an HIV vaccine would do for HIV patients. The first hope is that a HIV vaccine would prevent people from getting HIV in the beginning. While this HIV vaccine would help the uninfected population, it would do nothing for the HIV patients currently suffering. Many researchers are hoping a second use for the HIV vaccine would be to stop the progression into AIDS for currently infected HIV patients. This would mean these HIV patients would still have the infection and be able to pass it on, but it would stop the illness from making people sick. The final desired result would be for a HIV vaccine to make HIV patients no longer able to pass the virus onto others. While no one HIV vaccine will provide all of these results, scientists are hoping the HIV vaccine would provide a basis for a new HIV drug that could provide the other effects.
In the study to make each HIV drug, scientists have found that the makeup for each drug often spurs a side study for other treatments. There are hoping this will be the case in the study for an HIV vaccine. If the medical knowledge could be discovered to create a HIV vaccine, it could also bring about the knowledge to create a new HIV drug to treat current HIV patients.
For now, people with HIV will have to struggle through with the HIV drug their physicians currently recommend. However, with each new therapy scientists are one step closer to finding to cure or maybe the prevention to the HIV virus. There have been great combination drugs introduced in the last few years. The hope is that the longer people can live with HIV, the more likely that a solution will come about in their lifetime. Right now it's all about extending lives, but hopefully in the near future it will be about saving them.