Introduction
HIV+ people can face many challenges in their daily lives, either because of HIV or side effects of treatment, or for reasons unrelated to their status. This guide is to share with you information about how rehabilitation can help you living with HIV. The goal of rehabilitation for people with HIV is to help you improve your life and engage in active living by helping to:
- prevent health problems, or recover from or deal with health problems
- become or remain independent and self-sufficient
- improve or preserve ability to work, volunteer, and socialize
- improve physical and mental health and emotional well-being
One key thing about HIV is that rehabilitation and other healthcare professionals consider it an episodic condition. This means that many HIV+ people have times when they are feeling well, and other times when they are feeling unwell. These periods can happen within a day (e.g., having energy in the morning but feeling tired in the afternoon) or may happen over a longer period of time. Commonly reported challenges in a period of feeling unwell are fatigue, pain, and nausea, but any challenge might be faced. Sometimes these periods have a known cause, such as starting a new medication, but sometimes there is no obvious reason for it.
These periods of feeling unwell can cause uncertainty in some people. They have trouble making plans because they do not know if they will be feeling up to it. Or they may have a more general anxiety about the future because of it.
If you feel your challenges are episodic, please let your rehabilitation professional(s) know. In addition to the treatments for each challenge listed, rehabilitation professionals can help provide tips and suggestions for preventing or working through the periods of feeling unwell. They might also be able to give suggestions to help you deal with any uncertainty you face.