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.
Hello Shadrack and thanks for getting in touch.
To be honest, if you have doubts as to whether you are living with HIV or not, taking a test is the only way of knowing.
However, not having symptoms is not enough to say you are not living with HIV.
A lot of people, who are diagnosed with HIV, have had about 10 years without any symptoms.
Knowing will allow you to make an informed decision and plan your next steps based on knowledge, not wishful thinking.
I wish you every luck in your next steps.
I have stop treatment over 6years but I haven’t seen anything.Could it be am not having it now.I was told at the age of 5years I was tested and was positive.And I personally stopped medication without any doctors advice at age 14.And now I’m almost 21years,I believe I’m not having it now
Hi Orman, the UK had a good range of HIV meds with most of the saem meds that are in other countries. Anyone in the UK can get free testing, treatment and monitoring for HIV.