Aging Positively Conference hosted for older HIV patients
Desert AIDS Project hosted its third annual Aging Positively conference in Palm Desert Tuesday, highlighting practical information for those aging with HIV.
“I understand many people have a panic reaction and they’re very upset about a positive test.”
Eric Jannke has lived with HIV over the past 30 years. As president of the group, Let’s Kick AIDS Survivor Syndrome, he understands the stigma over the disease, especially for those who find out when they’re older, but says there should be no worry.
“HIV is no longer a death sentence. It need not be. There’s no reason for it to be. There’s effective treatment and effective prevention,” Jannke said. {“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1042108388195414016″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;The Aging Positively Conference for Older HIV Patients is taking place in &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalmDesert?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PalmDesert&#lt;/a&#gt;. Find out what’s being done to help older people with HIV tonight and how aging and the disease correlate. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/ua7sLHeiJk”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/ua7sLHeiJk&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1042108388195414016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;September 18, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″} Jannke was one of many that attended the third annual Aging Positively Conference at the Josslyn Senior Center in Palm Desert. It’s where a discussion on improving the lives of older HIV patients happened. It was sponsored by the Desert AIDS Project. Jannke says through studies, it’s been found that HIV patients age faster with certain potentially deadly conditions like heart disease appearing earlier.
“With all of that, HIV shifts the schedule down about 10 years, so people in their forties will have one thing besides HIV, people in their fifties will have two thing besides HIV,” he said.
Advances in medicine are also helping people like Jannke live normal lives decades after being diagnosed.
“People who are, as I am, taking their medication regularly, I am uninfectious. I have an undetectable viral load,” he said.
Perhaps the most important takeaway for Jannke is that, he wants to let anyone who suspects they may have the virus..to not be afraid to get tested.
“When people can break out of that stigma and go get tested themselves, because this is just a regular part of my life. I have sex, I should get tested, that makes it easier,” he said.
Information about testing and resources on HIV and AIDS prevention can be found here from the Desert AIDS Project.
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