Nothing in HIV treatment in mandatory (ie definitely has to be taken).<\/p>\n
For any drug or treatment, you need to look at the risks and benefits of taking it or not taking it.<\/p>\n
PCP prophylaxis with cotrimoxazole (Septrin) will protect your girlfriend from the risk of the pneumonia PCP. While her CD4 count is less than 200 cells\/mm3 she is at higher risk of PCP, and the prophylaxis is very good and very effective.<\/p>\n
There are many studies showing that the benefits in this case, for most people, are much greater than any risk from the additional drug.<\/p>\n
Not using it is running a risk for getting PCP.<\/p>\n
Cotrimoxazole is also a prophylaxis against toxoplasmosis, a serious brain infection that you are at increased risk of developing when your CD4 count is below 100 cells\/mm3.<\/p>\n
If your girlfriend is on treatment, and her CD4 count increases above 200 cells\/mm3, then it is safe to stop the cotrimoxazole after talking with the doctor.<\/p>\n
Although it is an extra pill, this is only likely to be for a short time, and it is very effective and worthwhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is it mandatory to take co-trimoxazole for prophylaxis against PCP?<\/p>\n
My girlfriend is without any symptoms, but I heard in my class today that it is mandatory.<\/p>\n
I don’t want to complicate her drug treatment with extra medicines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,29,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-opportunistic-infections","category-starting-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}