A Coronation Street worker was diagnosed with HIV after becoming seriously ill with pneumonia.
The 56-year-old mum is now urging people to make sure they get regular tests, after she had lived with it for years without knowing. Naomi Sloyan, who works as a location manager for the soap, told Cheshire Live that HIV was the last thing she or medics suspected when she went to her GP with ongoing illness.
She was diagnosed when tests showed she was suffering with a form of pneumonia associated with HIV in March 2018. Naomi said: "I have been living with HIV since 2014 but obviously I didn't know I was HIV positive for all that time.
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"For most of 2017 I was getting various symptoms such as rashes, extreme fatigue, pins and needles and coldsores and I was losing weight. I went to my GP and HIV was never raised. I live in Wilmslow, which is a white middle class area and I don't think it ever entered their head.
"I got iller and iller and was eventually taken to hospital with a urine infection which turned out to be pneumonia. They still didn't test me for HIV or for pneumocystis (PPC) pneumonia, which is a form of pneumonia associated with people who are HIV positive.
"I was treated with antibiotics and came home but I didn't improve. I was still off work and I wasn't functioning. I went down to six stone and I was skin and bone. I was sleeping ridiculous amounts.
"In March my thoracic consultant did a routine check of my lungs and said 'have you ever had an HIV test?' and I said probably while I was pregnant. They said let's do one now and then two days later I was called in and told my viral load was in the millions with a CD4 count, which tests for immunity, of seven. I was very poorly."
Naomi told CheshireLive her story in a bid to bust any remaining stigma about living with HIV during National HIV Testing Week. She said that it could happen to anyone and that people should get regular HIV tests, which can even be done at home.
Naomi, who got divorced from daughter Isobel's dad when she was three, was infected with HIV during what she describes as a 'brief fling' which she had entered into after coming out of a long-term relationship. She said that at the time she was 48 and perimenopausal and so her main concern in starting the relationship was birth control, with her thinking she didn't need to worry about contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD).
She said she did go for a sexual health check but wasn't offered a HIV test. She should also have been contacted when her former partner was diagnosed with HIV yet this didn't happen.
Explaining her initial response to being given the news of her diagnosis, she said: "It was a complete shock to be told I was HIV positive but, also, weirdly, it was a relief. I had been worried that it was some kind of cancer.
"Once I got over the initial shock it was quite a relief just to know what was causing my symptoms and that it was perfectly treatable."
Naomi said that once the pneumonia had cleared she was able to go on to antiretroviral medication and that, within two weeks, she felt like a different person. Within around a month, she was back at work. She added: "After being so sick, this was amazing. With most people, it takes about six months to get to an undetectable level. With my diagnosis coming so late, it took me about two years.
"I've been at an undetectable level for the last few years now. I live a perfectly normal life and you would not know I was living with HIV.
"If they'd had opt out HIV testing when I was admitted to A&E then it would have been picked up earlier, rather than being poorly all that time. That never needed to happen."
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