Question
What happens if I stop taking treatment?
31 August 2016. Related: Adherence, All topics, Changing treatment, Side effects, South 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.
The doctor told me the treatment m using is off market, Nd there is nothing more she can do. I have been off treatment for about a week now. How risky is it for me.
Hi SA girl.
If you’ve been on meds for a year and your viral load is 700 this would imply that they aren’t working like they should be doing. You’re going to need to change. You being sexual active, (this is if you are) won’t have anything to do with your viral load being 700.
This month when i went to collect my medications she told me that my viral load is 700 and she told me that im sexually active, what is sex has to do with my meds im really confused.I am one year and four month on medication , Is it possible that my meds could still lower the viral load or I should be changed?
Hi Queen, the YouTube video is wrong. Before there was effective treatment, HIV killed millions of people. Treatment is very good. It keeps people well and healthy. Your friend is at risk from stopping treatment, even though she feels fine now. Vitamins have no proven benefit to treat HIV.
I have a friend who is taking the drug and her fiance, after watching this YouTube videos saying is a scam. That she should stop it and now she is taking A to zinc drugs, and she is felling better. Actually, she had being taken arv drugs for 1 year and 3 months…
Hi Joseph,
As you’ve been off meds for 3 weeks your viral load will have rebounded. Your CD4 may also have began to fall. This will change as soon as you restart medication. Is there any reason why you’ve been off meds for 3 weeks?
I’m been taking him meds for more than 5 years I’ve stoped talking about 3weeks ago,what’s are the side effects
Hi Laura,
Side effects of ARVs can be different for different people. But the i-Base website lists ARVs currently used and includes the most common side effects. For example, if you are taking Atripla you can search it and read about any side effects here.
what are the most common effects of the ARV
Hi Angel.
Its great to hear that you want to restart meds. The best thing to do is to book an appointment to see your health care provider. Tell them what’s happened and let them know that you’d like to restart meds. Ideally they should check your viral load, CD4 count and also run some resistance tests.