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.
Suppose i have HIV+ but I don’t know about this and hv not done any treatment. I don’t want any treatment or I don’t know that I m affected by hiv. In this condition how long time can we alive?
Hi Lovenes,
i-base are a UK based organisation, we don’t work in Nigeria. You could ask at you local pharmacy.
Plz help me to locate where i can buy my meds in nigeria
Hi Lovnes,
How long are you going to be without meds for? You could try going to a clinic, they might be able to help you, or even a local hospital. Where are you in Nigeria?
I traveled frm SA to nigeria n i dnt knw wher to get my medication .im usin atrozia plz help me before i run short of meds plz
Hi JustMe,
Though missing meds for 2 days isn’t ideal she should be OK. She should however make sure that she goes and collects her meds again on Monday and plan it so that she doesn’t run out.
Hey my Girl friend ran out of meds and here clinic is closed for sat and Sunday so she will have to wait 2 days till she gets her meds by the way her viral load is undetected…
will this affect her meds in any how?
Hi Sam,
Thanks for getting back to us. What meds are you taking?
This may be of some help.
https://i-base.info/qa/4797
But to know for sure, I’d need to know what tests you’re going to be having done.
M not quite sure about the type but it’s the test to determine whether you are medically fit or not. Like high blood pressure, urine, diabetes; although i don’t think they test hiv bt was asking when they take urine for drug use.
Hi Sam,
Do you know what sort of medical tests you’re going to have?