https://www.thebody.com/article/aging-and-hiv

I work as a Peer Educator in an ID clinic and we have HIV/AIDS patients in their 70'a and 80's, getting older won't kill you - your pre existing conditions will. Keeping on meds and non skipping Dr. apts will help catch anything.

Some say people with HIV live longer than negative people because we're at the Dr. regularly, they run labs on us to catch things that negative people would have dormant in their systems.

I fear the financial burden of getting older with HIV, I realize we're all going to die and nothing we do can stop that, we just get to believe we are slowing it down.

@A myHIVteam Member. I was diagnosed in 1991 and started AZT. By 1996, I was having a major digestive issue and my cd4 was down to just 6. I had told my doctors that I did not want to know lab results because I did not want to get caught up in the numbers. I only found this out in 1997. In 1996, I saw the doctors at the Navy Hospital in San Diego and was put on disability retirement with 100% service related disability since I went POZ while on active duty. Those doctors gave me a gastroscopic exam and then a barium enema and I was told, "Yeah, you got a problem but we can't find it." I was working as a civilian and a co-worker suggested a civilian doctor who sent me to a civilian specialist. That doctor gave me another gastroscopic exam, found a tear in my bowel and scheduled me for surgery to fix it. By this time I was also on Ddi. Anyway, I'm still here, my CD4 is over 1100, and I am undetectable. I am now on biktarvy. I am 69 now on both my VA pension and my social security check. I was scared about this mostly because I screwed up my credit rating living too long in California after retiring from the Navy. In the six years that I've been near St.Louis, I repaired the credit rating and bought me a house. I've kicked some toxic people to the curb, including my older brother. I realized I am not the "people pleaser" that I once was because I was also able to tell my boss on a holiday job not to talk down to me in front of her customers or other employees (she micomanages all the time but this was ridiculous) and feel good about doing so. I was taken to court by a neighbor who basically lied and forged evidence to claim that I was harassing her, stood my ground that I was just asking her to be quiet in her apartment and that she was harassing me and got the case dismissed.

The point of all this is getting old is always a stage of life that few get the privilege of reaching. You and I are there already. Let's just relax into it and enjoy it. Avoid the stress of worrying about it because it's not going to change the fact that each day we are given, we are another day older.

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A myHIVte...

@A myHIVteam Member I am sure that knowledge will benefit you. We have the choice on how we approach each day.

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A myHIVte...

I believe that old age can give us anxiety, because it’s the one thing that many of us did not prepare for. After accepting the idea of dying young, it’s an adjustment to think about getting old.