"God, you look slim - you've lost so much weight!"

If I’d been overweight to start with, then that would fabulous. But you see, I’m over six foot tall and my weight started off at twelve stone. Reducing it to ten and a half could hardly be described as a good move.

You can never be too rich, too tanned or too slim, the saying goes. Rich, of course. Tanned , bring it on. But too thin, no.

Some drug company adverts make HIV treatment seem like a glamorous accessory. I’d would rather not have an accessory that gives me side-effects.

Seriously though, HIV treatment has given me the blessed opportunity in life to carry on and see my nephews grow, and maybe, let me have the opportunity to grow, very, very old.

It is finding the balance of how much long-term damage these little known about pills do, against the short to medium term benefits.

What is for certain, is that after almost eight years being diagnosed, I am still here and have avoided being "ill.”

That sounds all good, but the journey of not getting "ill" to date has been patchy. Almost like finding your way across to a bit of London you are unfamiliar with. Car, bus, tube or train, which one to choose? Clearly you take the most comfortable and quickest. Discovering how is the hard work and takes time and patience.

In terms of HIV, this started in a car journey on very bald tyres that burst and crashed into a bout of peripheral neuropathy. I jumped on the tube and found a very cheery acupuncturist who after about a year got my feet back to some semblance of normality. That dull ache was pretty unpleasant and the ease that came with acupuncture was a welcome relief.

Next stop by plane to San Francisco. I was wide eyed and excited in 1999 to see bus shelters advertising HIV treatment. Young, tanned and toned sailors, pulling at the rigging on their round the world yacht race. HIV treatment was being glamourised, and desperately needed positive images of people with HIV were being provided.

And why not. Why should anyone be made to feel like a washed up pariah of society?

I came back to London with new information, always a stronger position to be in. My peripheral neuropathy had been "sorted,” or was as good as it was going to get.

Everything I have read regarding HIV has always stressed the importance of strong working relationships with your consultant. I have been very lucky with my level of care. I know some are not as lucky. But come on, look at how poor access to HIV care Africa, China, Russia and India. How fortuitous are we to live in the UK?

Heads together, me and my consultant came up with a relatively easy triple combination. It steered away from protease inhibitors (which were then particularly associated with lipodystrophy – vanity is one of my characteristics). However, it did include AZT and that was to have consequences later.

In 2004, almost five years to the date that I travelled to San Francisco and saw the glamorous ads for HIV drugs and started my new combination. It worked – my viral load fell and my CD4 cell increased.

But on the down side, my triglycerides kept on increasing. Oh, and I had a very sore arse.The triglycerides were a worry, but I had to balance that against the success of the treatment. I was so sensitive about HIV making me ill that a mere spot would have me crawling the walls with worry.

And sitting at my desk for hours caused by bum to hurt. People would pass comment at how slim I looked, and I had spent time looking over my shoulder into the bathroom mirror, genuinely horrified at what I saw. My partner at the time made references to it and joked upon its appearance. I never found it funny.

My face was also changing. Small indentations were beginning to grow round the corners of my mouth - a cross between Robbie Williams and the joker from Batman. Now your arse you can cover, but not your face.

In fact, I felt pretty awful about it all. I could actually feel the cells in my glutes and down the backs of my legs being broken down. That 'being eaten away' at feeling is repulsive. Like seeing maggots wriggle away at a piece of torn flesh from an animal carcass.

In seven years of being diagnosed, I had never "lost it".

Seeing your body change so much and conscious of the effects of medication, I finally, and thankfully, let the reservoir of professionalism, smiles that everything was okay, fear of not wanting family and friends to worry, break away.

In fact it didn't break, it exploded – the shit hit the fan.

A long story short, in quick succession I found myself off the pills and into a drug holiday. AZT had been found guilty of the crime of lipoatrophy – the medical name for fat loss - and was whisked off to drug heaven , or hell?

I would have preferred a holiday at the Hyatt, but hey, you've got to take what you can. The triglycerides came down very quickly, but I was left with a bizarre feeling of not having the crutch of pills, no longer being dominated by time, no more worries when I was away on business thinking what time I needed to take my pills in a different time zone. Yes, I hear you say, that's good. Good it is, yes, but very strange, almost like losing a bad mate; it left a big hole of nothingness.

During the summer I saw a professional counsellor, to help me understand how HIV and its enemy pills had consumed every square inch of my head. It needed to be compartmentalised into manageable, bite size chunks. My local HIV trust kindly organised this for me who were a great support.

I still, literally, have a pain in the ass, but at least I know it is not suffering any more damage.

The face is a bit different. I saw the look of shock on my mother's face back then, and knew what she was thinking.

I was paid a great compliment a month ago when she saw me and noted elatedly how I had "filled out.” I knew I must have looked more like my old self. You don't realise the change so much when you see yourself every day. The gauntness had reduced. It's not how it used to be, but certainly not as bad as it was before I stopped my combination.

So much focus in the media is placed on the benefits of HIV treatment – and rightly so. But far less is placed on the how it can affect the way you feel about yourself.

Don't feel like you don't have an option. I didn't feel like I did, and it all ended in a mess of tears, runny noses, and feeling exhausted.

That's bullshit; life is too short. In this short life, everyone has the right to be confident in how they look, feel and portray themselves. Because if you don't, then that really is bullshit.