Question
What happens if I stop taking treatment?
31 August 2016. Related: Adherence, All topics, Changing treatment, Side effects, Southern 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.
Hello I am hiv positive and I was on treatment, leta I realized that the side effects are making me unable to urinate, I was very difficult for me so I stopped the treatment for months and I started again and the urine problem came back, I stopped it completely but now am getting sick and I don’t know what to do.. please help me with an advice.
Hi Sajan,
Are you on HIV treatment? Can you make your question a bit clearer please?
I have bad urine smell and back pain bifore I have gonoreya I already treatement also chamilidya what is symptoms
Hi Nomsa,
Though it can be frustrating when someone who should be on ARVS isn’t using them, you can’t force someone to take them. Are you able to talk about the benefits? Maybe you could suggest that they try another combination. The following guide may help you: http://i-base.info/guides/starting
Hey I’m Nomsa.My mother was diagnosed of TB in 2017 and then Hiv.but the doctors run the test again and the tests came negative for TB.We then decided to go to another health facility to do the second tests,it came back as negative for TV but HIV+.my mother is I’m denial , She’s made up her mind She’s not going to take meds.it makes sense why it’s the case.but this has been going on for long.she only took medication for few weeks as it made her sick,its been a year now she’s fine and gained weight.She lost her complexion and has eczema.How can I get her to take medication?
Hi Cindy,
Its is possible that some people may gain weight. How much weight have you gained and over what period of time? What ARVs are you taking?
My ARV’s make me gain weight. My pharmacist said that often happens with women has anyone else had this problem?
Hi Hassan.
Please advise your father that he should talk to a doctor. They should be able to help.
Hi my father did stop taking medication nd he has a stomach problem for the past two months he can’t stop going to toilet what can he do because he is back on his treatment but still it’s the same plz help
Hi Terry,
Good to hear that you’re thinking about going back to ARVs. You can talk to your doctor about whether your old ARVs will still work properly. But you can also ask about ARVs that suit you better. It sounds like the old ones were not good to you. Ask about different meds that are easier for you to take.