Question
Can I occasionally stretch my atazanavir dose to 32 hours?
16 March 2012. Related: Adherence, All topics, Resistance, Travel.
I take an atanazavir combination after breakfast each day. However I travel to different parts of the US almost every month for work. The trips are about a week long. Could I safely keep taking my pills after breakfast there even though it may mean 32 hours gap on one day or is that too risky? Do I need to change the time of day I take my pills when I’m away so that it is never more than 25 hours between pills?
Answer
Hi
If your viral load has been undetectable for more than a year, then being six hours late, on one day a month with probably be fine.
If it makes you life much easier then you would have to be very unlucky for it to cause a problem.
If your viral load is not yet undetectable then a more cautious approach would be to spread the six hours over several days. So instead of one dose period of 32 hours, for each of the first few days you could be a couple of hours late (ie 26 or 27 hours) until you are back on the 24-hour schedule.
When you come home you will not have this problem. This is because it is fine to compress the early dose in one go.
Comment