{"id":4933,"date":"2025-01-01T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/?page_id=4933"},"modified":"2025-01-12T22:26:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T22:26:42","slug":"when-to-use-new-drugs-and-when-to-wait","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/changing\/when-to-use-new-drugs-and-when-to-wait","title":{"rendered":"When to use new drugs and when to wait?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Any new combination should use at least two fully active drugs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using new drugs without other active meds will only give a short-term benefit. Viral load is likely to rebound again with more resistance. See Figure 9.<\/p>\n

Figure 9. Using only one active drug will only work for a short time<\/h4>\n

\"Graph<\/p>\n

Only one active drug is unlikely to get viral load to less than 50 copies\/mL.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

If a new drug is not helped by other active drugs, resistance will develop.<\/i><\/p>\n

It is only worth using one new drug if your CD4 count is very low. For example, if it is less than 50 cells\/mm3<\/sup>\u00a0or if you have other serious symptoms.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, it is better to wait. Using two or three new drugs together is usually a better strategy.<\/p>\n

This will make the new combination stronger. It will then perhaps be able to reduce viral load to undetectable. The benefit will then be long term. See Figure 10.<\/p>\n

Figure 10: Waiting to use three new drugs is more likely to get viral load undetectable<\/h4>\n

\"Waiting<\/p>\n

Waiting to use two or three new drugs together will make the new combination stronger. Viral load can now get to less than 50 copies\/mL.<\/i><\/p>\n

If viral load gets to below 50 copies\/mL it is likely to stay there without rebounding or developing further resistance.<\/i><\/p>\n

Table 1: Log scales (a log 10 scale is a multiple of a factor of 10).<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
1 log = 10<\/td>\n1.5 log = 30<\/td>\n1.7 log = 50<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2 log = 100<\/td>\n2.5 log = 300<\/td>\n2.7 log = 500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3 log = 1,000<\/td>\n3.5 log = 3,000<\/td>\n3.7 log = 5,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4 log = 10,000<\/td>\n4.5 log = 30,000<\/td>\n4.7 log = 50,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any new combination should use at least two fully active drugs. Using new drugs without other active meds will only give a short-term benefit. Viral load is likely to rebound again with more resistance. See Figure 9. Figure 9. Using …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":29,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-guides.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4933","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4933"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18358,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4933\/revisions\/18358"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}