Your first appointment at a specialist HIV clinic after your diagnosis (or if you change clinic) will involve questions about your health and medical history, a physical examination, and blood tests.

Your doctor will probably ask you to provide details about the following:

• If you currently have any other serious illness, or have had any in the past.
• If you currently have any symptoms.
• If there are health conditions that affect you or members of your family: for example, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, mental health problems and cancers.
• If you are currently taking medicine or drugs. This includes medicines prescribed by a doctor, those bought over the counter, alternative and herbal remedies and recreational drugs.
• If you have had any vaccinations.
• If you have any allergies.
• If you smoke, exercise and what your diet is like.

You may also be asked about your sex life. For example, whether you have a regular partner, how many casual partners you have, the gender of your partners, if you use condoms, and if you have had any sexually transmitted infections. This information will help your doctor provide you with information about how you can protect your own health and the health of other people.

At your first visit, you are also likely to have a physical examination. You’ll have to remove some clothing for this. You can ask to see a doctor of the same sex, or for a third person to be present.

Most examinations will include checks on your height, weight, temperature, blood pressure and pulse. Your doctor will lightly press into your abdomen to feel for any abnormalities and use a stethoscope to listen to your breathing and heartbeat. It’s also likely that your doctor will look into your ears, eyes, mouth and throat.

If you report any symptoms then your examination will include a detailed check on these.

After you have been examined, you’ll have some blood tests. The blood tests that you will have are discussed in the next section. If you have symptoms then you may be asked to provide other samples. For example if you have a cough, you may be asked to provide a sputum sample, or if you have diarrhoea, a stool sample. These will be checked in a laboratory for signs of infections.