Finding support

Finding support features

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  A healthy – and happy – old age with HIV

  At least one–in-five people with HIV in the UK is now over 50.1 Gus Cairns asks: What’s the recipe for staying fit and happy as we age? ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Supporting patient power: the role of patient advocates and advocacy groups

  Chris Sandford is sitting in his office at the Bloomsbury Clinic, one of the UK’s busiest HIV clinics, a step away from the computer-and-sofa-shop Mecca that is...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Help when you're troubled: getting the right psychological support

  Gus Cairns looks at the new Standards for psychological support for adults living with HIV....

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Is there life after death for HIV social care?

  HIV specialist social care is in danger of vanishing altogether as a facet of social work in England. Despite improvements in health, changes in the make-up and...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  A winter of discontent?

  New year can be difficult, with pressure to keep resolutions, the cold return to work and, this year, warnings about austerity ahead. But midwinter can be the...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  The beginning of change: the 2010 CHIVA summer camp

  Following on from our issue looking at young people, in October, guest writer Bakita Kasadha talks to the organisers and participants in the UK’s summer camp for teenagers...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Will a long life be a good one?

  People with HIV are now living into old age – an old age many regard with fear, as Lisa Power from the Terrence Higgins Trust finds...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  The best of friends

  Gus Cairns explores how friends can be good (and sometimes bad) for your health. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Faith in the community

  Religious faith is important to many Africans in the UK. Kerri Wells looks at the role religion plays in the lives of HIV-positive African people and the...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Walking back to happiness

  People with HIV, as endless studies attest, have higher rates of depression, addictions and other mental health problems than the general population. But even if we aren’t depressed,...

  From:  HIV treatment update

Finding support in your own words

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  Fifteen years on

  'Can I have my children tested?’ I managed to mumble those words. The doctor had just given me my HIV test results; I was positive....

  From:In your own words

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  Learning to believe in my own future

  I was 24. I was living in New York, was enrolled in film school, and had undertaken the first half of my film degree. I had...

  From:In your own words

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  Diagnosed far from home

  I still remember the very cold January morning; I was not listening to the pre-counselling, I thought it did not concern me. I just...

  From:In your own words

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  Surviving isolation and abuse

  My official diagnosis was in 1989. I then took another test in 1990 in the UK to confirm the legitimacy of it. At first, I...

  From:In your own words

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  A life full of laughs and love

  I was 24, in my final year at college and was planning to go to university when I was diagnosed HIV positive in a small...

  From:In your own words

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  Becoming an assertive woman

  I was born in 1977, during the apartheid regime. This situation forced my parents to cross the border for the liberation struggle, when I was four months...

  From:In your own words

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  Finding a better place

  I am in a much better place now than I was before HIV. To explain, I need to take you back to those days before the diagnosis....

  From:In your own words

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  The sex police

  I met Amy through a friend – a friend who knew my HIV status. We got on really well and she asked if I wanted...

  From:In your own words

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  Headaches

  In October 2000 I arrived in the UK from Zimbabwe. I went to live in Bristol with my then partner. Things went okay, and I...

  From:In your own words

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  The luxury of hypochondriacs

  That anxious look I get from loved ones is very hard to take, and all I want to do is reassure them that everything will...

  From:In your own words

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  Having a baby

  I want my experiences to give hope to other people – things do not have to end when you find out that you have HIV. In...

  From:In your own words

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  An emotional rollercoaster

  If someone would have told me that I would be alive 18 years after my HIV diagnosis I would not have believed them. As I...

  From:In your own words

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  Time will tell

  I was devastated when I got the news that I was HIV-positive. But I was lucky to have such a supportive GP. It was thanks...

  From:In your own words

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  HIV support in Manchester

  I was diagnosed HIV-positive in the 1990s. My husband had been ill for the previous 18 months, but not with anything they could put a...

  From:In your own words

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  Finding support

  I found out I had HIV in June 2005. My world just fell apart. I didn’t know that I needed an HIV test, but the...

  From:In your own words

Finding support news from aidsmap

• UK government ends funding for HIV-specific phone helplines

  The Department of Health has ended its support for the telephone helplines operated by Terrence Higgins Trust, Black Health Agency, fpa and Brook, with funding instead diverted to a centralised operation run by the private company ...

  04 October 2012 | Roger Pebody

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Finding support news selected from other sources

• Activists Launch Interactive HIV/AIDS Website

  A website providing a directory of medical services and other resources for people living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia was recently set up to help patients more easily access treatment and information about the disease.

  11 February 2013 | Jakarta Globe

• A Letter to HIV on the 16th Anniversary of My Diagnosis

  I know that thanks to you I had to take a very good look at myself, and the world. I had to look straight in the eyes of death and illness. Thanks to you I stopped taking my life for granted. I had to ask difficult questions to myself. Recognise my fragilities, and my responsibilities. What was most painful: I had to question the possibility of love and intimacy.

  04 February 2013 | Speaking Up! blog

• Cambodia: Lack of home-based care in Ratanakiri causing problems for people living with HIV

  People living with HIV in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia are unable to access home-based care in their area which is making it hard for them to stay healthy, an official has said.

  25 October 2012 | Key Correspondents

• New guidance to support organisations to deliver peer support for people with long term conditions

  Organisations delivering or planning to deliver peer support for people with long term conditions will be able to find out more about its benefits and good practice thanks to a new guidance by the Mental Health Foundation Peer Support in Long Term Conditions: the Basics.

  01 October 2012 | Mental Health Foundation

• NAT launches new report on HIV social care spending and services

  NAT today launches ‘HIV social care in England – a survey of local council funding’, looking into how HIV social care spending and services have changed over time.  This report compares results with a similar survey from NAT in 2008.  

  09 August 2012 | NAT press release

• Patients living with HIV are dying in denial

  For four years Shari Margolese has been in phone contact with a woman who lives somewhere in rural Ontario. Margolese doesn’t know anything about her — except that she is HIV-positive.

  and more »

  23 March 2012 | Toronto Star

• Pets help women manage HIV/AIDS: Study

  A spoonful of medicine goes down a lot easier if there is a dog or cat around. Having pets is helpful for women living with HIV/AIDS and managing their chronic illness, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.

  24 January 2012 | Moreover.com HIV/AIDS feed

• Public Service award winner - myhiv.org.uk

  The website myhiv.org.uk is part of Terrence Higgins Trust's (THT) LifePlus package of services, which is helping to transform the lives of people living with HIV in the UK.

  23 November 2011 | The Guardian

• Dead scared of taking the HIV/AIDS test

  It is a well- known fact that more women than men know their HIV status and that it would be great if more men went for testing. What is not so well known, and I speak from personal experience, are the inner struggles that men have to confront before going for testing.

  05 November 2011 | The Zimbabwean

• New Technologies May Increase Adherence to HIV Drugs

  New technologies may help HIV-positive people adhere to their pill regimens, The Minnesota Daily reports. Keith Horvath, a University of Minnesota researcher, built a “Facebook-like” website last spring that allowed participants to network with other people with HIV.

  05 November 2011 | AIDSMeds.com

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