Question
What happens if I stop taking treatment?
31 August 2016. Related: Adherence, All topics, Changing treatment, Side effects, South 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.
I took ARV for 8 days and stopped. Can I get back on it for good?
Hi Mike,
ARVs ideally need to be taken every day. If however you must stop taking your meds, then 2 days is better than 1.
Hi. I might need to stop my medication for 3 days (Biktarvy) and I was wondering if there might be a problem or if I should just stop it for 2 days
Hi,
Are you in a country where there’s a lock down in place. If you are, which country are you in? I’m asking as the following may help: https://i-base.info/qa/15658
When a person stops taking meds, their viral load will usually rebound within a week. What this means is that their HIV will no longer be under control. It’s important to restart meds as soon as possible, this is more important if the person has a low CD4 count.
I was on viraday from 2015 till 2018 then I started genvoya. I have no more pills and couldn’t manage to get more, so I am not taking genvoya since April 2020. What could the consequences be? How long can I stay without it? I might not b able to take it again till September. Where can I order it online?
Hi Zinhle,
The short answer is Yes. You can start again for good.
You can talk to your doctor about starting ART again. You can ask for tests to see if your last meds will work as well as they used to.
And you can ask if there are other meds that will be easier for you to take. It’s important also to mention the reason for having a break from ART. For example, if you had side effects from your last meds and if this was a reason for stopping.
Hi I stoped taking ART treatment for hiv since 2015 so is it possibly to start again for good
Hi Frank,
What medication are you taking? How many do you currently have left?
Though boarders are closed, you should still be able to get access to medication. Is the reason you’re being told that you won’t be able to access medication due to a shortage of stock?
Hello! The borders are closed in my country due to the covin19. The center where I go in Nicaragua informed me that we are not going to have any meds due to this. This has me really stressed out due to me being undetectable and a CD4 count of 890. Now with all of this I don’t know what is going to happen. What can I do in a situation like this?
Hi Gatanazi,
It’s great that your partner has started taking ARVs again after this pause. But it’s a good idea to call the doctor and ask about tests and monitoring.
Labs, doctors and clinics all over the world are concentrating on COVID-19. But she can ask what she should do now.
It’s important that the doctor tests to see if the ARVs are still working well. If not, then she can ask to switch to other meds that will work better against HIV.
Please let us know how she gets on.