Social media influencer Gena Tew has said that she’s “bored with being tortured in hospitals” as she continues to doc the issues she has skilled over the previous 12 months as an AIDS affected person.
Tennessee-based Tew has been documenting her well being journey in a collection of social media posts since going public together with her analysis in March 2022.
In a single TikTok clip, shared on June 11 and considered over 14 million instances, the mannequin confirmed herself struggling to rise up from her mattress. Her weight had plummeted to 65 kilos, and muscle atrophy had weakened her legs, she revealed.
Her well being has bounced again in current months, she mentioned, together with her weight rising to greater than 100 kilos, however Tew continues to cope with different issues, together with an lack of ability to stroll unaided and blindness in one among her eyes.
Gena Tew/Instagram/TikTok
As she continues to doc her well being journey, which has included such constructive moments because the CD4 rely in her blood being boosted, Tew addressed questions over whether or not she can be placing herself ahead to be cured of the illness following information of scientific breakthroughs.
In February, German researchers introduced {that a} 53-year-old man had change into the third affected person ever to be fully cured of HIV after receiving stem cell transplantation.
The so-called “Düsseldorf affected person”—who was identified with HIV in 2008—had acquired the transplantation in 2013 to deal with a life-threatening type of blood most cancers, acute myeloid leukemia, in response to a paper printed within the journal Nature.
“After 4 years of systematic commentary: Düsseldorf College Hospital can now present certified proof of one of many world’s first instances during which an HIV an infection has been cured,” the researchers mentioned in an announcement on the time of the announcement.
Nonetheless, Tew mentioned that she was hesitant about present process the remedy for causes that included her ineligibility and the excessive dangers concerned.
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“Everybody appears to be having like some magical area day with the truth that 5 individuals had been cured from HIV,” she mentioned in a video shared on TikTok this week. “I imply, that is so nice—for them.
“However telling me to have hope is not gonna assist me in any respect, as a result of I did my analysis and it’s a very poisonous, [potentially] deadly stem cell process that in addition they mentioned not everybody who has HIV is certified for. You need to have already got a life-threatening… blood downside or most cancers.”
“They’ve already tried it on a number of individuals and it has not labored. So there’s that,” she continued. “So do I need to probably die in an effort to get cured, or do I wanna take my drugs? I feel I am going to simply take my drugs, as a result of I am bored with being tortured in hospitals. Cool thought, although.”
Tew concluded her video by including a be aware explaining that she is “nonetheless within the AIDS class.” She additionally highlighted textual content from a information article that mentioned consultants deemed it unethical to aim to remedy HIV by a stem cell transplant with out the affected person already having a probably deadly blood most cancers, given the dangers.
The Düsseldorf affected person first examined constructive for HIV in 2008. Six months into remedy, he was identified with acute myeloid leukemia, a most cancers of the blood and bone marrow, the tissue the place blood cells are made. Regardless of the poor prognosis, his docs noticed a possibility to cope with each situations with a single remedy.
“It was meant from the start to deal with each the leukemia and HIV with the stem cell transplant,” Dr. Björn-Erik Ole Jensen, who co-authored the current paper on the case, informed Newsweek.
Gena Tew/TikTok
Six years after receiving the transplantation, the Düsseldorf affected person stopped taking his HIV medicine. The researchers then carried out intensive assessments to make sure that there have been no remaining indicators of lively virus within the affected person’s blood.
“Nearly ten years after the stem cell transplantation from an unrelated donor and greater than 4 years after ending the HIV remedy, he’s now in good well being,” mentioned the researchers within the paper. “Thus far, that is the longest and most exact diagnostic monitoring of a affected person with HIV after stem cell transplantation.”
In the meantime, Tew informed her TikTok followers again in November that the CD4 rely in her blood had been boosted as her well being continues to enhance. The rely is a measure of the variety of CD4 cells, a sort of immune cell attacked by HIV.
In a video clip, she mentioned: “I simply had my current bloodwork finished, and as you already know… my CD4 rely was 112. So now it’s 159. So I feel within the subsequent three-and-a-half to 4 months, I will be over 200. I am excited.”
She continued: “As my physician sees it, they are saying on paper they are going to see it as HIV as an alternative of AIDS.” As soon as her CD4 rely surpasses 200, she can be categorised as dwelling with HIV fairly than having AIDS, she defined. HIV sometimes turns into AIDS in roughly eight to 10 years if left untreated, in response to the Mayo Clinic.
Gena Tew/TikTok
Tew, who stays unable to stroll unaided, mentioned in October that the viral load in her blood signifies that she can not transmit HIV to a different individual.
“I’m undetectable, you guys. Meaning untransmittable,” she mentioned in a TikTok video. “With that being mentioned, persons are asking me, ‘Are you going to marry or have a child with somebody with AIDS?’ I need not marry any person with AIDS. They do not need to have AIDS. Meaning I can not transmit it to the opposite individual.”
Tew went on to say that her potential accomplice may take precautions, similar to happening a medication known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which reduces the possibilities of contracting HIV by sexual activity or whereas injecting medicine.
“I can have a standard life. Let’s do away with that stigma,” she mentioned in her video. “AIDS is not a dying sentence. I survived—I am a survivor.”
Because of antiretroviral remedy, HIV/AIDS sufferers can suppress the viral replication inside the physique and block transmission to others. The affected person will subsequently have such a low stage of HIV within the blood that it turns into undetectable in standard evaluation.
