Thesis:

  Treatments for HIV have come a long way, and they're still evolving. We want effective treatments as well as reducing side effects. For now, we have to deal with these side effects of HIV treatments separately. HIV treatments have psychological effect as well as physical effect.

Side effects of patients with HIV and HIV treatment:

• Depression: (Reference: Yanofski) 
• prescribing anti-depressants must be done carefully
• interactions between HIV medications and antidepressants is a factor
• selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
• a category of drugs 
• other SSRIs have equal efficacy 
• side effects are the determining factor in choosing the drug
• research and trials are needed to decide on the right drug
• these above are psychological side effects, there are physical side effects too

• Gastrointestinal symptoms (GI) (Reference: Bei-Hung)
• Gastrointestinal symptoms include: diarrhea, loose stools, gas/bloating, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting
• Relaxation techniques may help
• a study done on 130 patients who are using HAART
• randomized treatments for patients
• four groups: real acupuncture +RR (AR),  sham acupuncture +RR (SR), real acupuncture +health education (AE), sham acupuncture +health education (SE)
• results: real acupuncture +RR group showed the most side effect reduction

If someone already has HIV, the first thing to do is to make sure that it doesn't spread. Actions have to be taken to prevent the virus from spreading to other people.