I have what might be a silly question but I am trying to make some sense of this.

I have been positive for 10 years and have not been on meds. Not because it was not time but because I have avoided doctors in this past 10 years. I am now over coming that fear and once I went back in for the first time in about 8 years for labs I saw that my cd4 was a mere 37. I am not showing any major signs of illness however my doctor is putting me on Atripla which I will start this week. My silly question has to do with comparisons. When i search this forum and I see counts as low as mine I usually see them next to VL in the hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions. My VL is 61,000. Is my count off balance or have I simply not seen other counts like mine. I am not saying that 61,000 is nothing to sneeze at but in 10 years i assumed it would be much higher than that. I am not asking this to avoid treatment i am starting I simply wanted to know if this was unusual to have almost no t cells and not have a VL extra high. It almost makes me feel like once my VL is un detectable my t cells may not rise because they dont seem to be connected. Again if this has been asked before I apologize.

Thanks for all you do.

There is no direct correlation between CD4 count and viral load. Your situation is quite consistent with what we have seen in others. It depends on the type of virus you have and your underlying immune system, in terms of where the CD4 count is what the viral load would be.