Question
What happens if I stop taking treatment?
31 August 2016. Related: Adherence, All topics, Changing treatment, Side effects, Southern Africa, Stopping treatment.
What are the side effects if someone stops taking her medication for HIV?
Answer
Thanks for your question.
May I ask why you are thinking of stopping? Many people find adhering hard at some in their lives but there are ways to make it easier. Likewise if you are suffering side effects – you can switch to meds that better suit you.
Several years ago a very large study called SMART reported that stopping treatment increased the risk of serious complications. These included a higher risk for heart, liver and kidney complications in people who stopped treatment and also a higher rate of some cancers.
If you decide to stop treatment, your viral load is likely to rebound within a few weeks. If you stay off treatment your CD4 count will start to drop over the next few months. When this happens the risk of developing other infections and getting sick increases.
How quickly this will happen though varies a lot. The lower your CD4 count was when you started meds, the quicker your CD4 is likely to fall without ART.
In the SMART study, most people who took a treatment break did pretty well for a short time. However, most people were not able to recover their CD4 count to earlier levels even 18 months after they restarted treatment.
Please talk to your doctor about who you feel. It is not generally good to stop treatment. It is definitely not good to do this without first talking to your doctor.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi Thato, why did your friend stop meds? This is a risk to his health if he foes this often. If his viral load was undetectable when he stopped, it will have taken longer than a week to rebound. This means his partner would still have been protected.
Hi my friend stoped taken his meds for a week and he was engaged in sex with her partner so can he transmit HIV to her
Hi Zukiswa, thanks, please go back to your clinic again now and they will explain everything. This will usually involve new tests to see your current viral load and CD4 count. If sounds like you have been very lucky not to have became ill if you stopped meds so many years ago. It will be important to restart again now,
I stopped taking my meds 2019 because of relocating so now I’m back to my previous place,will I be able to register or they will take some tests
Hello Portia and thanks for getting in touch.
It’s best if your friend returns to the clinic before re-starting her treatment.
The clinic will be very happy to see her back, don’t worry about that.
They can also run tests to ensure the medication is still working for her or even provide her with newer options.
It is also important for your friend to discuss any possible side effects she had on her medication that might made her stop so these can be addressed.
The clinic can help her by giving her medication or advice to deal with side effects
Hi I just want to ask about my friend: she stoped the treatment its almost a year so she don’t know whether to re-start with her treatment or she should go back again to the clinic
Hello Dithunya and thanks for getting in touch.
Please contact your local clinic and book an appointment with them.
The clinic can ask for your records from the old clinic or they will give you information on how to go about your registration
I stopped last year of taking my treatment so I changed the place where I was living in too and i didn’t tell my doctor or the hospital where I was taking my treatment, how do I get help from the nearest clinic
Hello Okuhle and thanks for getting in touch.
I am very happy to hear you are doing so well, however, even if you don’t feel it now the virus is slowing attaching your body.
It is best to start medication while you feel well as this means your immune system is still in good condition.
The longer you wait, the more chances you have that your immune system will become weak.
Inevitably, as time goes by, you will become unwell and you might also get other infections, the once we call “opportunistic” as they only affect people with weak immunity.
Please read here for some more information and consider re-starting your medication.
https://i-base.info/qa/5731
I am sure your clinic and doctor will be very happy when you make contact and even if you don’t restart medication again they can help you know how strong your immune system and when is the right time to start, before getting sick.