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.
What if i mis 1 day to take my arv’s thn 2morrw i cotinue.sometmes i 4get im risking or what.
Hi Moyagabomashao,
What infection did you have that made a doctor tell you to stop taking ARVs?
what should i do because I was on ARV’s and the docter stopped me from taking them due to infection so after a week I went back to taking them so help cause am loosing weight
Hi Jessica.
Weight loss can be due to a number of things, if this is an issue you’ll need to discuss this with a doctor.
Hi I stop taking my medication cz of some side effects bt now itz been 3. Months back again I notice I lost lot of weight … is bcz I stop taking medication or iz normal loose weight
Hi Frazier,
I’m sorry to hear this. But a few people unfortunately have serious reactions to some ART meds. And so they have to stop taking them.
When this happens you should be offered other ART meds which you can tolerate. And which you don’t react to.
There are many drugs that should be available. Can your sister see the doctor urgently about this? It’s important she talks to the doctor and asks about switching treatment.
My sister who has been on ART treatment has been asked by a Clinical Officer to stop taking medication due to due serious side effects. Is that safe for her?
Hi Brandie,
We are not doctors at i-Base. So we don’t tell people what to do. However, we do provide up-to-date HIV treatment information to HIV positive people and friends and family.
Many people find this empowering. They say it helps them make treatment decisons that suit them as individuals.
So, as Muirgen says above, may I ask why they are thinking of stopping?
What do you tell a patient who stopped taking their hiv medications
Hi Refilwe,
Please let us know what HIV meds you were taking and why they changed it. Was it because the meds were not working well?
And what are the second line meds you’re now taking? Please let us know.