Question
What happens if I miss a week of ARVs?
3 December 2021. Related: Adherence, All topics, CD4 and viral load.
I have been on treatment for the last 8 months. I stopped my medication for a week and just did a viral load test, it says I have a viral load of 700000. I don’t understand.
Answer
Hi, how are you doing?
Do you mind if I asked why you missed a week? Adherence to a daily medication can be difficult and you might find a better way of managing it if you speak with a doctor.
For ARVs to be effective they need to be taken daily at the same time. This is because a constant level of the medication is required to be in your body to keep HIV suppressed. Missing a week of ARVs would allow the level of medication in your body to drop below a required amount. If it drops this low it will stop working and HIV will be able to replicate and increase its viral load. Here you can find out why taking ARV daily is important.
Missing a week means there is a chance HIV has gained resistance to your current medication. Taking ARVs until you are undetectable does not mean you can stop with taking them. ARV therapy will be required long-term to prevent the virus replicating. You may need to speak to your doctor about better ways to adhere to medication or if there is a more suitable combination.
If you have another question please get in touch,
Josh.
Hello Jacklyn and thanks for getting in touch.
Chances are that within 6 days you will not have any problems.
However, if you continue not taking them you might feel unwell, and your viral load will start rising.
After a second week you will probably not be undetectable any more so you will need to be careful and use condoms when having sex.
You might experience similar symptoms to when you first caught the virus.
And slowly your CD4 count will start falling and you will be at risk of infections.
If you have restarted your medication, you should be feeling back to your baseline very soon.
Was there some reason you stopped them?
If you had side effects then this information might be useful:
https://i-base.info/guides/side/what-are-side-effects
Here is also some more information on adherence:
https://i-base.info/guides/starting/adherence