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.
My friend last took meds about a week and her pills finished while she was traveling, can she still retake her meds once she is back or would she have now developed resistance?
Hi Shivaji,
It’s common to forget to take your meds from time to time, as it’s just one there won’t be any issue.
One day I miss to take my arv . It is harmful for me or anything bad for me . What should I do
Hi Dorcas, please talk to your doctor. It should be easy to start taking meds again. You didn’t say why you stopped your meds, but please also discuss this with your doctor.
I stopped my medication 1 year ago but now I’m not ok. My viral load is 9000 – what will happen to me?
Hi TS, even though you are feeling fine, HIV will be damaging you immune system. This means you could become seriously ill very quickly, without any warning.
Are you still being monitored by your doctor? This is very important. Why did you stop taking the previous combination? Talking to your doctor could easily fix whatever the problem was.
Hi i stoped taking ARVs for 5 months and I am not sick. I am still feeling well but scared to retake them. Would do you think? Am i gonna get sick, please advise.
Hi Tee,
You don’t need to take PEP, there’s no risk when someone has an undetectable viral load. Please see here: https://i-base.info/u-equals-u/
Hello i slept with someone who is HIV and on treatment with a viral load of less than 30. The following day after i found out. I took pep. So if she’s undetectable and taken pep for further protection what are the chances of transmission on my case.
Hi Comrade,
Though you may feel OK, your CD4 is low, you need to take ARVs. If you don’t your CD4 will continue to fall, if this happens you’re putting your life at risk. Is there any reason why you’ve chosen not to take ARVs?