You may be reading this as someone who has been recently diagnosed as HIV-positive or as someone who has had HIV for some time. If you have recently been diagnosed with HIV you may want to visit the part of our website ("Recently Diagnosed?") or the UK Coalition website both of which contain specific information for those recently diagnosed.

Many people with HIV are healthy and carry on full and active lives despite the infection. Improvements in treatments for HIV have greatly reduced the number of us dying as a result of the infection and has also decreased the amount of time we need to spend in hospital due to HIV.

Living well with HIV is not just about taking the right medication. Many people with HIV go several years or more before needing to take anti-HIV drugs (see our "Treatments" page). This section of our site includes download links to factsheets (in PDF format) produced by the National AIDS Manual (NAM). The full range of their excellent factsheets can be found at their website www.aidsmap.org.uk.

There are many aspects to living well with HIV. Being diagnosed positive, starting medication, having an illness or just the daily experience of living with HIV can cause stress. It is important to develop mechanisms that work for you to manage stress and take time out for yourself. Whilst some people find moderate stress helpful in overcoming problems, for most of us ongoing stress will have an effect of weakening our immune system, and affecting our sleep and health. Often stress can be caused by other concerns in our lives that are not directly connected to HIV, be it work, moving home or relationships; or it may be that it is related to anxieties around HIV, health or treatments. Whatever the cause of stress it can help to speak to a counsellor, or just another person with HIV who has had similar experiences. You can do this through Positive Options at DHIVERSE.

Click on the image to read the NAM factsheet on sleep (PDF document).

Nutrition is a foundation of good health, and eating well can improve the strength of your immune system to fight off HIV infection. HIV and some drug treatments can have an impact on the ability of your body to absorb some nutrients within food. For further information on nutrition many HIV clinics will have a nutrition advisor, alternatively there are leaflets and information available from DHIVERSE on nutrition.

Smoking has been shown not to have an effect on the rate of HIV progression or the rate at which CD4 cells are depleted. There also seems to be no evidence of any difference in the effectiveness of HIV drugs in smokers and non-smokers. However as with HIV negative smokers there can be serious long term health issues that arise from smoking. In people with HIV who smoke there is evidence of a greater chance of the development of PCP, the AIDS defining pneumonia illness. Many people find that complementary therapies such as acupuncture help them to give up smoking. Complementary therapies and one-to-one support are available through Positive Options.

Click on the image for more information on smoking and HIV in the NAM factsheet on smoking (PDF document).

There is no evidence that moderate drinking (a unit or two of alcohol a day) does any harm to people with HIV. However, if you have hepatitis or high levels of blood fats, then you may have to stop drinking alcohol altogether or cut down alcohol consumption.

Heavy drinking can affect your immune system and may slow down recovery from infections.

Heavy alcohol use can have potentially serious consequences for people taking anti-HIV drugs. Alcohol is processed by the liver and a healthy liver is important for the body to process medicines effectively. The blood fat increases caused by some anti-HIV drugs can be made worse by heavy drinking.

Click on the image for more information on alcohol and HIV in the NAM factsheet on alcohol (PDF document).

Everyone can benefit from some form of exercise and experience a lift to their overall health and well-being. Moderate exercise is beneficial to the immune system, and can also improve mood and offer an important way of maintaining a healthy self-image.

Click on the image for more information on exercise and HIV in the NAM factsheet on exercise (PDF document).

Just because we have become HIV positive does not mean that our sex lives or our opportunities to have children have ended. However the knowledge of our HIV status does mean that we can take steps to protect ourselves and those that we care about.

If you are HIV positive contracting a sexually transmitted infection can be more serious than for someone who is HIV negative. Infections may be more acute, harder to treat and more likely to reoccur. If you are taking HIV treatments you may have to stop or change drugs if you get an infection such as Hepatitis, which affects the liver. Condoms or femidoms are an effective mechanism in preventing the transmission of almost all sexually transmitted infections including HIV. Many sexually transmitted infections do not always have symptoms and for this reason it is good to have regular sexual health check ups at your clinic. For more information on sexually transmitted infections click here.

There is some evidence that positive people have become reinfected with a different strain of HIV following unprotected sex or sharing needles with another positive person during intravenous drug use. It is possible that if you are reinfected it could be with a more aggressive strain of HIV or with one that is already resistant to some of the anti-HIV drugs.

Sex is about responsibility and personal choice. Everyone has a responsibility for the sex that they have - whether they are HIV positive, negative or untested. Many positive people, particularly when we are first diagnosed, have concerns around disclosure of HIV status, whether to tell new partners or not, and if so when to tell people. There are no right or wrong answers: you can only do what you feel comfortable with. If you would like to speak to another positive person about issues around disclosing your HIV status to others this can be arranged through Positive Options .

It should be noted that there have been some recent cases in the UK whereby people with HIV have been prosecuted for transmitting HIV to others. DHIVERSE does not support legislation that criminalises people living with HIV. We believe that such legislation is harmful to efforts to prevent HIV as it may discourage people from accessing testing services and sends a message that only HIV positive people need to take responsibility for sex. Such legislation can only add to the stigma and lack of understanding of HIV that DHIVERSE seeks to challenge.

Many HIV positive women use condoms when having sex with their partners, other positive women choose to have children with their partners. Improved treatments and increases in medical knowledge have reduced the risk of HIV being transmitted from HIV positive women to their babies.

Click on the image for more information on pregnancy and contraception in the NAM factsheet on pregnancy (PDF document).

Sperm washing is a process which has been developed for couples who wish to have a child, where the male is HIV-positive and the female is HIV-negative. The procedure reduces the risk of HIV transmission to the female partner and subsequently the unborn child. Whilst there is still a theoretical risk of transmission sperm washing is certainly safer than unprotected sex.

There are approximately 50,000 people living with HIV in the UK. The outlook for someone diagnosed now is very different to that of a few years ago. Advances in treatment now mean that fewer people are dying as a result of HIV and AIDS. This means that the importance of developing personal health strategies to manage living with HIV is now a consideration for life.

Medical information can be complex and changes rapidly. It can be confusing when considering treatment or other decisions relating to your health. If you want to talk through options around living well with HIV in confidence please get in touch with our Positive Options team after reviewing the services we can offer you or speak to your consultant or clinical nurse specialist.

People living with HIV are one of the best authorities on how to live well with the virus. The UK Coalition of People Living with HIV includes a Positive Voices section where people with HIV can exchange information and ideas through an online message board

The information in this section is based upon the experiences of people living with HIV. Information is updated regularly. The factsheets and some of the information within the text is taken from the National AIDS Manual Factsheets, available online at www.aidsmap.org.uk.