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.
Hi Mapoza, really good to hear you are connected to care again and also back on treatment. Without more details it is difficult to comment on the pain and insomnia.
If your meds include dolutegravir, then taking these in the morning rather than at night can sometimes help insomnia.
Please talk to the clinic about any pain. This might just be your body getting used to meds again and things might get easier within a week or two.
I stopped 2023 and started again last week now I have pain and insomnia
Hi Bukiswa, I am sorry that I don’t understand all of your comment. If you are HIV positive, then the clinic needs to give you treatment. This includes if you previously were seen there and then stopped meds for any reason. Which was the clinic and have you tried again since? Perhaps go to a different clinic if there is another one nearby.
Me I miss on 2003 so now I have flue all time. so I go to the clinic but they did not giving me anther chance to take treatment again
What can I do?
Hi Indieni, I am sorry but I need more information. What is the treatment you are taking? Is this HIV treatment becasue you are living with HIV or is it PrEP or PEP?
If i dosed like 8 days, it’s possible to affect my partner if we do sex without condom
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