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.
Good day, I stop taking my arv a week now and I started taking it again after a week break, is that enough for it to get to the next stage???
Hi Pretty, it is great that you are ready to start taking your medication again. How long have you not been taking it? and have you had any recent viral load/CD4 tests?
Hy my name is pretty I skipped to drink my medicine becouse it was finish and I was far from my location.but now I’m ready to take it back
Hi Nontokozo, how much weight have you lost? As you have lost your treatment while not taking medication, starting treatment will help to regain weight. What treatment will you be starting?
Hi I skipped my medication for 2 months n m loosing weight will I recover if I take them again
Hi LadyT, it is great that you are ready to take your medication again. How is your health now? and have you had recent CD4 and viral load tests?
I skipped my arvs for a year and I’m ready to take them again …..will u get sick?
Hi Nondumiso, it is definitely better to not miss doses but sometimes things happen. It is good that you got your friend to bring you your meds. Please ONLY take your normal dose – do not try to take the missed doses. I am sure everything will be okay.
I want to if you skip 4days not taking ARVs treatment what’s going to happen to me because I forget at home but I send someone to bring it so is it wise if I could take 3times a day just to cover those days?
Hi Ladyv, please don’t worry. It sounds like your meds might include efavirenz as one of the meds. Either way, there are other meds you can try that might be much easier and without any side effects. Please contact you HIV clinic to talk about this. Even though you stopped, it will still be okay, but you should really restart again with either this or a new combination.