Tell Me I'm Okay_A Doctor's Story by David Bradford

Author:David Bradford [Bradford, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Medical (Incl. Patients)
ISBN: 9781925523331
Google: heeAswEACAAJ
Amazon: 1925523330
Goodreads: 40816318
Publisher: Monash University Publishing
Published: 2018-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

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3The meeting was arranged by the Australian Doctor’s Fund. My account is available today on the internet, from where I retrieved the above quote, under the heading AIDS and the Health Professional Summit Conference, 1989.

4This was providing there was a clear ‘window period’, with no risky exposures for three months before the test.

5Candidiasis, or ‘thrush’, is a fungal infection commonly occurring in the vagina of reproductive women and in the mouths of infants. In adults, persistent candidiasis in the mouth is often indicative of an impaired immune system.

6PCP = Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, the commonest opportunistic infection occurring in patients with AIDS in Western countries.

7This is the typical appearance of oral thrush (candidiasis).

8Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) before 1980 was a rare cancer. After 1980, it began to appear commonly as an aggressive cancer in gay men when they had developed the immune deficiency associated with HIV infection. In 1994 it was discovered that KS was directly caused by a sexually transmitted virus – the human herpes virus 8 (HHV8). Thus HHV8 became another opportunistic infection associated with HIV and one that led to the development of KS.

9Dr Robert Gallo had recently developed the human T cell lymphotropic virus-III (HTLV-III) antibody test in the USA. Later it was renamed the HIV antibody test. In late 1984, the Fairfield Hospital Virology Department developed its own in-house test and we were able to send blood from the MCDC for testing. A positive HIV antibody test indicates the presence of HIV infection.

10T cell count was the colloquial term for the T4 helper cell count (now referred to as the CD4 count). T4 helper (CD4) cells play a vital role in cellular immunity. The T cell count is a test of immune function. A fall in the T4 helper cell count indicates immune deficiency. In the healthy adult there should be more than 500 T4 helper (CD4) cells per ml of blood. Throughout this text, for simplicity, I will simply call this test the T cell count.

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