Getting care for HIV involves getting regular testing and bloodwork, including a viral load test.

There are a few important numbers that HIV+ folks can keep an eye on through getting tested by their doctor such as viral load and CD4 cell count. These tests will be done regularly by your healthcare provider and involve drawing a few tubes of blood.

In Nova Scotia, HIV expertise is centralized in the infectious disease clinic in Halifax. Once a treatment regimen is determined follow up may be done by your family doctor (if you have one). You have a right to ask your doctor about what tests you’re getting and why, and what the results are, even if they usually say less specific things, like “everything looks just fine.”

Viral load is the number of copies of the virus that are in the blood. Since HIV works in the body by using CD4 cells to make more copies of HIV, measuring the number of copies in a person’s bloodstream is a way to estimate how much of the virus is in their body at any given time.

• In general, a lower viral load is good for your health, and shows that treatment is working.
• Viral load can be well managed with good medical care from an experienced HIV care provider. It is a crucial number for understanding the effects of treatment and how your body is responding to HIV.
• Some folks can get to the point of having an undetectable HIV viral load. Generally, reaching an undetectable viral load indicates that treatment is working.
• People with undetectable HIV viral loads aren’t cured of HIV, but they also can’t pass it on through sex. The latest research on undetectable viral load says “Undetectable HIV = Untransmittable”.
• For a number of reasons, including dealing with common health concerns (like the flu or a cold) or getting another STI, some individuals can see occasional increases or “blips” in their viral load. Blips are not uncommon and don’t necessarily mean that treatment isn’t working, or that transmission becomes more likely.
• It’s important to remember that a viral load test only shows a snapshot of your viral load for that day, but not the period between tests.
• Generally, HIV-positive people will see their doctors or healthcare providers to get a viral load test every three to six months to check in.
• These tests also only show the amount of virus in someone’s blood, not their cum (or other fluids), so it’s possible they’re not the same. Evidence shows that most of the time, when one is low, so is the other.

CATIE has a very useful fact sheet on viral load and other health tests like CD4 count, if you’re interested in learning more.

This section was adapted, with permission, from The Sex You Want Website.
You can learn more about where we got this information from at: NS Health, CATIE, Nova Scotia.ca
*disclaimer: we do not necessarily endorse all of the information, content, or language used in these references