Living with AIDS
By Connie Lauerman
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 18, 2004
About 12,000 women become infected with HIV each year--30 percent of the estimated 40,000 new U.S. infections annually.
But the true extent of the epidemic is not known, because data reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control comes from only 29 states. Chances are the toll is much greater.
At year-end 2003, 19.2 million women worldwide--a number equal to the combined populations of Lon-don, New York and Singapore--were living with HIV/AIDS, almost half of the estimated 40 million adults with the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
In the U.S., heterosexual African-American women are experiencing the greatest increases in AIDS diagnoses--a rate 23 times greater than that of white women, according to the CDC.
In Chicago, the number of AIDS diagnoses has de-clined overall--but not for women. During 1991 to '92, women represented 13 percent of newly diagnosed AIDS cases. Ten years later women accounted for 24 percent of all AIDS diagnoses. The number of Chicago HIV/AIDS cases in Hispanic women rose from 13 percent of all diagnosed Hispanic cases to 16 percent during the same period.
The virus does not discriminate, infecting women from all walks of life and demographic categories.....
Living with AIDS: Menopause a complicating factor
By Connie Lauerman
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 18, 2004
Patrice Dean must cope with AIDS--and menopause. That combination is unknown territory. Dean, 49, was diagnosed with HIV eight years ago as a result of 28 years in a world of heroin, crack and prostitution.
Now she's part of another subculture, the isolated world of HIV/AIDS, in which she must grapple with the virus, the side effects of medications, the "stigma and fear" on the part of others who believe she's "a bad person" and somehow deserves to have AIDS--and menopause. "I feel the aging process coming on," she said. "It probably comes on a little sooner for us. We forget a lot. I think that's a combination of age and the disease." Her bones hurt, and a year ago she was diagnosed with osteoporosis, a known side effect of some of the medications, and "degenerating joint disease." She is also taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, which she said cloud the mind. She blames the anti-retroviral drugs for everything. "They're not normal for the body. They're potent. They have to be destroying things."
The anti-retroviral medications affect the liver, especially in women, and raise the level of fats in the blood, thus increasing the risk of heart disease, said Dr. Pat Garcia, director of the Women's HIV Program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Some can impair sleep, cause headaches, nausea and diarrhea, and abnormal tingling sensations in the hands and feet. "They're not a panacea," Garcia said.
The success of anti-retroviral drugs in extending life means that a whole group of HIV-positive women, like Dean, are passing into menopause. "Will changes in hormonal structure have an effect on immunological issues that women are going through because of their HIV?" asked Dr. Mardge Cohen director of the Women and Children's HIV program at Cook County's Ruth M. Rothstein Core Center. "We are in the process of [developing an] understanding of how menopause affects HIV."
On the upside, if there is one this particular concern does mark an improvement in care. After all, not that long ago, menopause wouldn't have been something to worry about if you had AIDS; you weren't expected to live long enough to have to really deal with it.
On the downside, however, is the sheer increase in numbers and proportion of women dealing with the disease.
Posted by iain at August 18, 2004 12:27 PM
