The Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Osteopathic Manipulation Evaluation Study (HOME)

Inclusion Criteria:

• are either Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) naïve or not have taken ART for the past 12 months
• are between the ages of 18 to 65
• have a CD4+ T cell count between 200-700cells/mm3
• have viral loads less than 100,000 copies/mL
• do not have any medical condition that limits his ability to participate in this study as defined by his physician (e.g., cancer, blood clotting disorder etc.)
• are willing to provide informed consent
• are not using any drugs recreationally
• are not on prescribed systemic steroids
• are willing to recruit a friend/partner, aware of the their HIV serostatus, to be trained in OMT techniques and apply it to him daily.

Exclusion Criteria:

• history of malignancy excluding both squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma of the skin and/or any malignancies fully treated and considered cured by the treating physician for at least 1 year
• aortic aneurism/disease
• vertebral artery disease
• carotid artery stenosis/disease
• abdominal hernias
• portal hypertension
• cirrhosis
• cervical disc disease currently exhibiting radicular symptomatology (i.e. numbness, burning, muscle weakness, etc)
• infectious mononucleosis in the past 12 weeks,
• pneumothorax
• bone disease
• Participants with a medical access port and/or a noncompliant ribcage will be excluded from the study.

• The potential causes for ribcage noncompliance include:

  • congestive obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD)
  • spinal arthritis
  • costochondritis
  • congestive heart failure (CHF)
  • pulmonary edema
  • recent trauma to the ribcage
  • certain connective tissue disease such as Ankylosing Spondylitis
• There is a risk of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture in participants with AAA and these participants are excluded from the study.