Question
Can I restart medication?
6 February 2017. Related: Adherence, All topics, CD4 and viral load, Life expectancy.
I stopped my medication for HIV, now I want to use it again. This is because I am loosing weight. What will happen to me, am I going to get sick?
Answer
Thanks for getting in touch.
How long have you been off ARVs for? Do you know what your viral load and CD4 count were when you stopped medication?
There’s no reason why you can’t go back to taking meds, this is actaully very important. This is because only ARVs can help your HIV.
What you should do, is go and visit your doctor. It is your doctor who will need to do some blood tests and also see if you’ve developed resistance to the meds that you used to take. Once these have been done, they’ll be able to advice you what to take. Or you could of course contact us.
With regards to getting sick, ARVs help your HIV. Its not being on them that causes problems for peoples health. This is explained at the following link, please see question 7:
https://i-base.info/qa/what-are-the-most-asked-questions
Hi Nondumiso, if you are now living in another part of the country, it is probably easiest to register as a new patient at the new clinic. You can then talk to the doctor about your history. It should be easy to restart again, even if you don’t have your medical history. If would be better for the doctor to know though. I also dont know the guidelines in your country as you didn’t say where you live. Best wishes.
Hi, I stopped taking ARVs (ART) but now i want to use them again. Can I restart at another clinic since am now staying far away from my previous clinic? My medical records are still in the previous clinic.
Hi Winny,
If you’re positive, then you’re positive. A person doesn’t suddenly stop being positive. When you were first diagnosed, what was your CD4 count and viral load?
Hi I’m winny
I tested positive in 2016 and I started taking meds since I was pregnant so I defaulted because I’m not able to go back where I was staying for transfer so yesterday I decided to go to the clinic to run the test on me but the result came back negative how possible is that