There is a primary stage of HIV infection. Some persons may experience the symptoms, and some persons don't. It is important that if you have put yourself at risk for HIV to talk to your doctor about getting tested, since sometimes people think they have a mild flu when they are first infected. There are symptoms associated with primary HIV infection and the asymptomatic stage, which occurs after that.
Flu-Like Symptoms
The primary stage of HIV lasts two weeks. "The Body" states that 70 percent of persons develop flu-like symptoms like fever, chills, night sweats and rashes. They might have a headache and a sore throat. After that, they recover from these symptoms. Because these symptoms are nonspecific, it is possible that the person infected is not diagnosed or screened for HIV.
Swollen Glands
During primary HIV, the immune system is working hard to produce antibodies to the HIV virus as well as cytotoxic lymphocytes. This results in swollen glands, for which someone may or may not seek medical consultation.
Seroconversion
It takes three to six months for a person to develop antibodies to HIV after the initial infection. If he takes an HIV test prior to seroconversion, his test may come out negative. It is important that persons consider when the activity occurred that put them at risk, because a retest at three and six months most times is indicated to rule out a false negative test.
Asymptomatic Stage
After the primary stage, someone with HIV can be clinically asymptomatic (have no symptoms at all) for an average of eight to ten years. She may look and feel healthy even though the HIV continues to break down her immune system. The HIV virus is replicating during this period and the immune system is weakening. This predisposes a person to developing opportunistic infections.
"AVERT" states that 20 percent of persons with primary symptoms of HIV seek medical attention from their doctor. The rest do not, which means that it is simple for the HIV to go undetected for a period of time until the clinical symptoms appear from an opportunistic infection later down the road. After the asymptomatic stage, the person infected goes into early, middle and late HIV symptomatic disease. During all of these phases, the person is infectious.
