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.
Hi mi name is Malefa and I’ve been taking ARVs frm 2014 wen I was pregnant after giving birth I stopped.again I started in 2018 jst fr a month but stopped again.now mi CD4 dropped it’s now 289.iam scared do I go back to take it ? Or it won’t work anymore iam so scared pls help me.i was taking Tribuss.
Hi Mbalienhle,
Which country are you in? If its South Africa, please contact the following organisation: https://tac.org.za they will be able to advise you.
Hi I started treatment 9 months ago April 2018 ihad PCP was told of pneumonia I’ve been taking my medication very well buying it at our local pharmacy using cash iam on atripla now iam no longer working I cannot afford to by my ARV my last dose was Sunday 3 days without 4 days now not taking my one pill iam panicking now an I can’t go to my local clicinic as people are being mistreated their HIV status disclosed by health care workers sometimes they are being returned an told that ARV is out of stock iam awaiting my pension fund end of April is there a way II can get ARV free until I get my money an start buying it myself apart from my clinic
Hi Unknow,
For me to be able to help you I’m going to need to know what the names are of the medication that you’ve been given.
Hi guys I just found out today that am positive, but they have given me lot of pills, how do I drink them, which of them are ARV
Hi Gelepi,
What medication are you taking?
since I started using ARVs my skin color changed am so dark an I have a lot of incurring pimples as well as loss of appetite and weight loss I hardly sleep coz all I dream of is death it feels like am going crazy its not normal
Hi Grace,
If you aren’t on medication your HIV won’t be under control. Your viral load will increase and in time your CD4 count will drop. If you’ve had issues with the Atripla, have you thought about using another type of ARV?
I have been taking his meds since 2009 but on 4/2/2018 I stopped taking it and start taking black seed oil 20ml a day, my viral load drop from 480 to 180 on 10/2018 when I did my last check up. My doctor ask if I’m still taking my meds and I said yes, but that’s not true. This is January I’m still not taking it, now I notice I have lost some weight, I’m still eating as normal, but I notice the night sweats is back, I take Atripla and I just don’t feel like taking it again. My next blood drawn will be June.
Hi Qvtaive,
Does that mean you haven’t had access to treatment? What HIV meds were you taking?
What country do you live in? There could be local support organisations that can help.