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Making decisions
Immediately after your diagnosis can be a difficult time to make major decisions. These decisions might include who to tell about your HIV diagnosis or when to start anti-HIV treatment.
It’s highly unlikely that you are asked to start taking anti-HIV treatment the day you found out that you were 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 anti-HIV treatment is something that you will need to consider sooner or later. In this book you can find out when you need to start treatment, what medicines you need to take, how often you need to take your medicines 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 book includes a chapter, Telling people you are HIV-positive. which provides more information on telling people in all sorts of situations.