The End of the Road

Well folks, we've come to the end of our blogging journey this week. I have to admit, when we first started this assignment I was a little bummed that I was stuck with blogging when I felt I could get a much more hands on experience talking with a pen pal or in the chat room. Attending the infected panels changed my mind about that for one. It is hard to ask people incredibly personal questions about HIV because your not sure how they will take it. Furthermore, the blogging experience has helped shaped my inquiry methods. The lax guidelines for our postings has made it so that we can research and find answers to any questions or hypothesis we had about HIV. More often I find myself researching into things that I wonder about in everyday life.

Did You Know...???

Its Spring Time, and that means allergy season! As if I don't enjoy my pollen covered car enough, I'm even more thrilled with my bouts of sneezing attacks and sinus inflammation. So this got me thinking, does HIV have any effect on allergies or vice versa? You would think, the HIV would increase the sensitivity of allergens as allergies themselves are an over reaction of the immune system to false antigens (i.e dust). On the other hand, could an allergic reaction be too much for a suppressed immune system to handle?

In an article in POZ magazine in 2008 thanks to antiretroviral medications, sinus problems are no longer a life and death matter. Untreated allergies that can lead to sinusitis can sometimes mean that bacteria or another virus begins to reproduce in the sinuses once they are congested. There are no significant studies that show that HIV people suffer from more sinus infections than HIV negative people, especially with the use of ARTs.

Reference:

-web: Spring Awakening: HIV, Allergies, and Sinusitis. April 2008. POZ magazine. Retrieved 4/9/10 from, http://www.poz.com/articles/hiv_allergies_sinuses_401_14336.shtml.

What Health Reform Means for AIDS

Coming up to the home stretch of the semester, things are getting crazy. While classes like physics and statistics torture my mind, I appreciate the knowledge that I have taken from this HIV course. Unlike physics which some people argue is quite handy, I find the information I've taken from this class to be more so of a life skill. While I doubt I will ever really care about the force a raindrop has on your head (which I might add would go right through your head without air resistance) or the frictional force of your car tires on the road, I will care about and use the facts about HIV on a weekly basis at the very least. It has given me so much more than that. It has provided me with the knowledge to protect myself and taught me about a virus that is taking hold of the whole world.

Did You Know...???

In the past month with the health reform fighting its way through Congress, the new implements make way for a change for those with HIV.

1. All Americans must buy health insurance. This means that the government is required to provide subsidies for those too poor to afford the coverage.

2. Bans insurance companies from terminating coverage on people with "pre-existing conditions". This means people with HIV cannot have their coverage terminated because of their health concerns.

3. The reform prohibits a life time cap on the coverage provided within a person's lifetime. This is especially good for people with chronic illness' (i.e HIV)

4. It expands coverage of Medicaid/Medicare to people with income below poverty line. These adults compromise of 37% of uninsured people in America (many of which are HIV+). (Expanding Medicaid)

Reference List:

-Web: The Black AIDS Institute Applauds Congress' Passage of Historic Health Care Reform Bill. March 22, 2010. The Body.com. Retrieved 4/6/10 from, http://www.thebody.com/content/policy/art56015.html.

-Web: Expanding Medicaid: Coverage for Low Income Adults Under Health Reform. Feb 22, 2010. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved 4/6/10 from, http://www.kff.org/healthreform/8052.cfm.