HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is believed to be one of the dreaded viruses and is known to cause one of the most dreaded diseases “AIDS”. When the body is infected with HIV, the symptoms do not appear all of a sudden but tend to develop eventually from a period of 2 to 12 weeks. The common HIV symptoms are flu-like and include diarrhea, fatigue etc.

When these symptoms begin to appear, it implies that the person with HIV is very infectious at this stage and HIV is present in large quantities in the genital fluids. These common HIV symptoms mostly tend to disappear within a week or a month, and are often misinterpreted for common viral infection. After these symptoms get over the person feels fine again and it is observed that these symptoms tend to return time and again. But, the other severe common HIV symptoms tend to develop after around 10 years of the HIV infection as, even though the symptoms disappear but the viruses keep on multiplying inside the body and keep on weakening the immune system. As it is known that the HIV infection progresses hieratically. This hierarchy is based on the common HIV symptoms developed during a particular stage.

The early stage common HIV symptoms include :

• High Fever
• Headaches
• Tiredness
• Enlarged lymph nodes (glands of the immune system that can be easily felt in the neck and groin)
• Abdominal cramps, nausea, or vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Muscle aches and joint pain
• Skin rash
• Sore throat
• Weight loss

The chronic stage (followed by early stage and is seen after 10 years or so) common HIV symptoms are:

• Confusion
• Diarrhea or other bowel changes
• Difficulty in concentrating
• Dry cough
• Fatigue
• Fever
• Loss of appetite
• Mouth sores
• Night sweats
• Swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpits, and groin
• Pain while swallowing
• Personality changes
• Repeated outbreaks of herpes simplex
• Shortness of breath
• Tingling, numbness, and weakness in the limbs
• Unexplained weight loss
• Yeast infection of the mouth

Last stage:
AIDS occurs during this stage and in due course the immune system becomes so weak that it is not able to even fight against normal bacteria, virus or any other fungi. The common symptoms of this stage include:

• Coughing and shortness of breath
• Seizures and lack of coordination
• Difficult or painful swallowing
• Mental symptoms, such as confusion and forgetfulness
• Severe and persistent diarrhea
• Fever
• Vision loss
• Nausea, abdominal cramps, and vomiting
• Weight loss and extreme fatigue
• Severe headaches
• Coma

Children having AIDS suffer from same infections as adults’ .In addition; to these problems they also have severe forms of the typical childhood bacterial infections, like conjunctivitis (pink eye), ear infections and tonsillitis etc.

Thus, we should be careful and if we recognize any of the symptoms in the long run we should immediately go for HIV testing