Question
How long can I live without HIV drugs?
2 January 2017. Related: All topics, Life expectancy, Living with HIV long-term.
Can you please tell me how long can someone live without taking HIV medication?
Answer
The best way to answer this is to say that modern HIV treatment (ART) means that life expectancy is not affected by being HIV positive. HIV positive people with access to treatment can be expected to live as long as before they became positive.
Without using HIV treatment, life expectancy is related to how quickly your CD4 count drops and how low it gets.
Without treatment, some people see their CD4 count drop to under 200 within a few years of infection, while others people can go for 5-10 years or longer before they need treatment.
See also: Your CD4 count and the risk of becoming ill.
This is different to saying how long you could live. However, without treatment, once your CD4 count falls below 200 life expectancy drops very dramatically.
Note: This answer was updated in January 2017 from a question first posted in November 2011.
Hi Crown, why did you deliberately miss your medication? and did you miss them in a row or once per week?
got HIV positive test about two years start taking medication but in the recent time i deliberately missed about5 days in a month without taking the medication does that have a side effects
HI Robert, starting your medication again is great. Why did you miss taking them for a month? As you have missed your medication for a month it would be great to get a viral load test in the next few weeks. This will let you know if your medication is working still and your viral load is being suppressed.
I missed my meds for about a month now. Am I going to be okay? My medication is BIKTARVY. And I’m starting back on them today
Hi George, stopping HIV meds usually take a while before you start to become ill. Viral load usually rebounds quickly and this can cause many problems. This can include feeling tired again as your body has to deal with HIV. As your CD4 count drops, the risk of serious complications becomes much higher.
Why did you decide to stop? If this was linked to side effects, there might be easier combinations that you could use.
Please get back in touch with your doctor to talk about how you feel. If you still want to stop ART, then at least your doctor will know and you can be monitored more closely.
i-Base doesn’t give advice though, just information. Stopping ART is not recommended, but it is important to understand the reasons you wanted to do this.
I’m with ART drugs for 10years and lately I decided to stop taking it and am not feeling anything, I feel active and energetic and picking up my weight and I want to stop taking my ART drugs, and still waiting to get my cd4 result also.
Please I need your advice..
Hi Lovina, starting drugs as soon as you can is the best way to keep you healthy. While you may be feeling well, HIV can still be having an effect on your body – namely damaging your immune system.
Taking drugs will prevent the actions of HIV. It will also prevent you passing on HIV to others.
Hey my name is lovina, I was tested HIV positive last year December and till date I’ve not been sick, no symptoms, I’m very healthy… Should I start taking drugs now?
Hi Sharon, it is not clear who is HIV positive?
Hey my got HIV 16 years ago she hasn’t been taking drugs nobody knew she was positive until 16 years later that’s wen she stared taking her drugs my question is why now? What went wrong that she finally agreed to take her drugs