Q and A

Question

What reduces the time treatment takes to work?

Hi, once on treatment I believe CD4 count and viral load improves fairly quickly but can you tell me what would negatively alter these counts and how long would this take?

Answer

Hi

Thanks for your question – which is in two parts.

Firstly, the main factors that affect time to a treatment working include:

  • Which drugs are in the combination. This is because many combinations all all take roughly the same time, if your are using an integrase inhibitor, viral load drops faster. There doesn’t appear to be any long-term advantage from this faster response though.
  • How good you are are taking the meds (ie not missing doses). If you general don’t miss any doses and roughly take meds every day at the same time, you will get the best response.

Secondly, how quickly people respond varies a lot.

  • This is difficult to predict.
  • It is likely linked to your individual immune system.
  • It is linked to how much HIV affected your immune system this before treatment. The lower your CD4 count the longer it takes to get to safer levels. The higher viral load (ie over 100,000 copies/mL), the longer it will take to become undetectable.

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