No one wants to deal with the possibility of being infected with HIV, the precursor virus to AIDS, but for millions of people this is a reality that can’t be ignored. While dealing with a fatal disease is scary and extremely difficult for most people, advancements in medicine and treatment of this particular virus give people the opportunity to still live many years or even decades with HIV as long as it is diagnosed early enough in the process. This makes the ability to identify the early symptoms of HIV critical to long term treatment.

What to look for

There are many early symptoms of HIV infection, and different people will see different symptoms at first. However keeping an eye out for the warning signs on this list will give you a much better chance of diagnosing the disease early. Look for a week to month long illness with the following symptoms:

  • Headache
  • Fever
  • Enlarged lymph nodes
  • Fatigue

Sometimes one to two months after contraction there will be a time when the body falls ill to the spreading of the virus and these symptoms show up. Often times this will clear up, causing many people infected early on to not have any idea they were actually displaying the early symptoms of HIV. If you find these symptoms and can trace back a time a month or two ago when it would have been possible to catch HIV, then it’s very important to get a test done to be sure.

Difficulty recognizing it

Because HIV is such a long term virus, people who are infected can literally go years without displaying any symptoms or signs at all. This can lead many people to believe that they are perfectly healthy when that’s really not the case. The other issue that comes up is even the early symptoms mentioned here will go away after a few weeks or a month. That means if you miss the first signs and don’t get regular check-ups, then years can go by before more signs appear again.

Importance of check ups

Normal physical check-ups aren’t going to detect any early symptoms of HIV until years after infection for many people. Yearly check-ups should involve not only a physical but also blood tests to test for any problems that might not be clear. This is the best way to catch HIV early before it becomes advanced or full blown AIDS, and is a practice everyone should practice yearly.