Making decisions

Immediately after your diagnosis can be a difficult time to make major decisions. These decisions might include, for example, who to tell about your HIV diagnosis or when to start HIV treatment.

It’s highly unlikely that you will be asked to start taking HIV treatment the day you find out that you are HIV-positive. It's more likely that your health will be monitored, so both you and your doctor can understand how your body is coping with HIV. If your immune system has already been weakened by HIV, then the decision to start taking anti-HIV drugs to prevent you getting the infections and illnesses to which HIV can make you vulnerable will be a more pressing one. But HIV treatment is something that you will need to consider sooner or later. On this website there is a section called HIV treatment and one called Taking your treatment - adherence , where you can find out about when you need to start treatment, what effect HIV treatment might have on your life, how often you need to take your treatment and what side-effects you might experience.

Take time to think about who you are going to tell that you are HIV-positive. Think about why you want to tell them and how you are going to tell them. Can you anticipate their best or worst reactions? Begin by telling the people closest to you, who will be the most supportive. 

This website includes a section called, Telling people you are HIV-positive , which provides more information on telling people in all sorts of situations.