“Cognitive motor impairment or damage to the peripheral nerves is also common. Research has shown that the HIV infection can significantly alter the size of certain brain structures involved in learning and information processing.
“Other nervous system complications that occur as a result of the disease or the drugs used to treat it include pain, seizures, shingles, spinal cord problems, lack of coordination, difficult or painful swallowing, anxiety disorder, depression, fever, vision loss, gait disorders, destruction of brain tissue, and coma. These symptoms may be mild in the early stages of AIDS but can become progressively severe.
You ought to repeat this to any teen that tells you he or she is considering becoming sexually active.
Any teen is unlikely to become infected with HIV via sex than they are through intravenous drug use. And to be honest with them, there are far more common, serious warnings they need to be given about sex, both in general and specific to venereal diseases.
There is a frightening assembly of STDs that are relatively unknown to most children, whose common effects can be permanent, such as herpes and genital warts, lead to sterility like gonorrhea, can cause severe birth defects in their children, and can otherwise mess them up, like chlamydia, which can result in life threatening cervical cancer.
And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of unwanted pregnancy.
HIV is fairly low on the totem pole, unless children associate with some real trashy people. That they don’t associate with them, even holding their behavior in some degree of contempt, is a very good way for them to avoid a LOT of problems.