Question
How often do people stop taking hiv meds because of severe side effects?
21 May 2008. Related: All topics, Side effects, Starting treatment.
Answer
Although this depends on the individual drugs in your combination, generally less than 5% of people have side effects that are defined as ‘severe’ enough to need to stop treatment.
This link has information about how side effects are graded. Grade 3 or 4 are usually defined as ‘serious’ and Grade 1 or 2 as ‘mild’.
Perhaps 10-20% of people may change or modify treatment based on mild or less serious side effects. This is usually both easy and recommended in order to improve your quality of life, and to find a combination that is easy to tolerate.
Hi Avreu
Your statement is not supported by the evidence. One of the main causes of death today is related to late diagnosis.
This is where people have left it so later before getting an HIV test which makes it more difficult for the treatment to work.
The original question asked about serious side effects – and the rate of around 5% is supported by most studies of recently approved drugs. This is likely to be a bit higher in people who are diagnosed late.
Your personal experience of treatment may be different, and your symptoms and/or side effects need to be treated and looked at carefully. Your experience is important, but it is not common and not shared by ‘most’ people.
How you can say that only 5% of people living with HIV stop medication. Most of the HIV people died because the side effects of the medication. When they gave me my medication Kaletra I find 30 side effects that afect my health.