Question
Does skipping a dose have an immediate effect?
14 December 2009. Related: All topics, Resistance.
Hi,
I have been on HIV meds for a year now. However, I had missed my medicines for a day… does this have any immediate impact on my current health?
Answer
It is highly unlikely that missing a dose will have any immediate effect on your current health.
Everyone is likely to miss or be late with a dose of medication from time to time. The major possible problem is if this is something that happens more regularly.
When you forget to take meds, the drug levels of each drug falls to levels that are too low to fight the virus, but that are also high enough to risk developing resistance. The more often this happens, the more likely that resistance will develop. This means that one or more of the drugs will not work as well or may not work at all against your HIV. If you develop resistance, then most likely you will need to change your medicines and your future treatment options become more limited.
Sticking to a routine so you don’t usually forget, will mean you can use this treatment for many years, and will only need to change it if better drugs come along in the future.
Not every missing of a dose, however, will necessarily lead to development of resistance. There is a very good explanation about resistance and adherence here.
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