Night sweats and other HIV symptoms are more common in people with secondary infections like tuberculosis or Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. HIV can be dormant for up to 10 years, and symptoms may not appear until a secondary infection occurs. Tuberculosis and PCP are serious infections for people with HIV.
Night sweats and HIV symptoms tend to occur more frequently in people who have the virus plus a secondary infection, such as tuberculosis or Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP). Other symptoms frequently associated with HIV may also be due to an underlying infection or disease. A person may not experience night sweats or other related symptoms for several years after an initial HIV infection, but most people with the virus experience them at some point during their infection.
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This virus attacks the immune system, severely weakening it and placing the infected person at significant risk of developing a secondary opportunistic infection. Such infections may not pose a serious threat to otherwise healthy individuals, but these infections can become life-threatening to an individual with the virus.
Before a person starts developing symptoms of a disease, they may have no idea they have been infected with the virus. This is because HIV can lie dormant in an individual’s body for up to 10 years after an original infection. Usually, when an individual starts experiencing night sweats and other symptoms, another infection has invaded the body.
While all diseases and viral infections are dangerous for a person with HIV, tuberculosis has become one of the most serious. Symptoms of this bacterial infection include fever, cough, fatigue and unintentional weight loss. Individuals with a cough caused by this disease often pass a lot of mucus and can sometimes even produce blood. Night sweats are a classic symptom of this disease, and there is a high rate of tuberculosis infections among people with HIV.
Pneumocystis pneumonia is of serious concern to people infected with HIV. This type of pneumonia is actually quite common, but it doesn’t usually cause major complications in healthy individuals. In people infected with HIV, however, PCP is one of the most life-threatening infections they can face. Its symptoms include unintentional weight loss, a dry cough, difficulty breathing, night sweats, and HIV symptoms such as diarrhea, tongue stains, and swollen lymph nodes.
Night sweats and HIV symptoms don’t necessarily show up during the early stages of the infection. Some patients can live for several years without any signs associated with the virus or other secondary infections. For most people recently infected with HIV, however, flu-like symptoms will begin to emerge shortly after becoming infected.
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