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 name is Haylie and I live in New York, upstate. I transitioned here from new Jersey back in July. In NJ my clinic sent me with enough samples to make it until now. It has been a week since I have not had my Bictarvey 50mg. My insurance has been the most difficult thing to solidify. I do have an appointment on Monday to get a refill. However, I am experiencing sleepless nights, horrible body aches like I am having withdraws from opiates. I am wondering if the these shakes, and restlessness has anything to do with the sudden stop of the medication?
Thank you for being here for all of us. I am still trying to work out all the shame I have for being careless and using iv drugs. Recently, diagnosed in January this year with only a viral load of 200, so we caught it early!
Hi Margaret, have you been to speak with your doctor about your memory? What sort of things are you having problems with e.g., people, names of things, maths?
What is the treatment you are on? and do you know your CD4 count/viral load?
Eating black seed with a cup of urine is not going to help. Please do not drink urine. Black seed and urine will have no benefit to your memory/health and this course for 21 days will not lead to any improvement.
I am margaret from Papua New Guinea 32 am getting medication for 6year now and am starting to los my memory what will I do some say eating black seed with cup of urine for 21 days .am confused
Hi Yolanda, Hetemcit can be used as PrEP. It has the same drugs used in Truvada which is the most common form of PrEP. It can be used to prevent HIV transmission.
Hi my partner is using hetemcit but he says he is hiv negative that clinic gave to him to prevent him from getting the virus is it possible one can use that pill as prep …
Hi Nash, people should not stop treatment is they are HIV positive. There is no reason to be taking this treatment if HIV negative unless doing so for 30 days as a course of PEP. There is no situation in which you slowly phase out this type of medication.
I recently found a new prescription of Trenvir and Tenefovir Disoprocite Fumarate (might be misspelt) in my partners bag and he explained that his Dr advised him not to get off them immediately, but phase them out slowly. He has been on them since 2019 because he needed them and they are a form of vitamin or supplement, which I refuted.
Is this true? Does one have to gradually get off the medication if one is not HIV +?
Hi Melta, I am sorry to hear about your mums experiences. Is there another clinic she can go to? or is she able to go to her current one with a friend/family member?
Has she kept up with her tests for the last year e.g., viral load and CD4 tests. Is there a local HIV support/peer group near you that would be able to offer some help?
Hi how can I get help for my mom she is 67 and she stop taking treatment for about a year now, she is sick and she don’t want to visit a clinic she keep saying the nurses make some funny comments and laugh at her.i really need your advice so I can help her.thank you
Hi Nilam, why did you stop taking your meds? Being undetectable means your medication is working and that it is suppressing HIV, but it does need to be taken everyday for HIV to remain suppressed. Pain specifically in your joints can be caused by many things. Have you spoken to a doctor about the pain you are experiencing?