Thank you for your question.<\/p>\n
You are very lucky having such a variety of HIV medications available to you free of charge in Chilie. The drugs you have listed above are very similar to what is available in the UK.<\/p>\n
It would be useful to know if you are currently on HIV treatment? If so which treatments are you taking at the moment?<\/p>\n
To go through the side-effects of all of the drugs you have listed above individually would take a long time. There are some great websites<\/a> which explain the drug interactions and side effects of each drug in detail. It may be easier for you to read the i-base guides, \u2018Introduction to Combination Therapy<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Avoiding and Managing Side-Effects<\/a>\u2019. These booklets are free to download or you can order them on line and we can send you a free copy. We can even send you updates when you are in Chilie if you would find it useful?<\/p>\n The drug to avoid, if you have the choice, is stavudine (d4t) because it is known to have toxic side-effects and is now no longer used in the UK. The World Health Organisation (WHO) also recently developed guidelines which stated that stavudine should not be used as a HIV treatment. All other drugs listed above are liscenced in the UK.<\/p>\n The first-line treatment in the UK tends to be 2 NRTIs and 1 NNRTI or 2NNRTIs and 1 PI boosted with ritonavir. However, as I said HIV treatment is very individual and which treatments you should take will depend on your liver and kidney function, any medical conditions you may have, the side-effects you personally experience and other such factors.<\/p>\n Most people experience only mild to moderate side-effects when they first begin medication. There are treatments available for side effects to make them easier to manage.\u00a0 You should find that after 2-4 weeks your body begins to adjust to the medication and the side effects lessen. If after this time the side effects are still bad you should speak to your doctor.<\/p>\n It may be worth speaking to your doctor in the UK before you leave to get his\/her opinion as to the best first-line combination for you, assuming you are not already on HIV treatments.<\/p>\n Good luck with your new life and new relationship!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi there guys.<\/p>\n First of all thank you for all the good work.<\/p>\n My question might seem to be very specific and personal and hope I can get some guidance from you. I am originally from Chile and am now a citizen of the UK. I tested positive for HIV a year ago. I have recently gone back to my country on a long holiday and I have found myself falling for a local guy, typical story isn\u2019t it? I have been considering going back to settle in Chile but being HIV positive has made my decision somehow more difficult as the level of care I would get over there is less satisfactory than the care I could get in the UK.<\/p>\n My question is regarding treatment. There are treatments available in Chile free of cost but I was wondering if you could give me your views in respect of their side effects and which drugs I should be taking. Here is the list of what is available:<\/p>\n Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NRTIs or nukes)<\/p>\n abacavir (ABC)<\/p>\n didanosine (Ddl)<\/p>\n stavudine (D4T)<\/p>\n lamivudine (3TC)<\/p>\n zidovudine (AZT)<\/p>\n lamivudine + zidovudine (Combivir)<\/p>\n lamivudine + abacavir (Kivexa)<\/p>\n lamivudine + zidovudine + abacavir (Trizivir)<\/p>\n Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs or non-nukes)<\/p>\n nevirapine (NVP)<\/p>\n efavirenz (EFV)<\/p>\n Protease inhibitors (PIs)<\/p>\n amprenavir\/fosamprenavir (APV\/FPV)<\/p>\n atazanavir (ATV)<\/p>\n indinavir (IDV)<\/p>\n lopinavir (LPV)<\/p>\n nelfinavir (NFV)<\/p>\n ritonavir (RTV)<\/p>\n saquinavir (SQV)<\/p>\n I would really appreciate if you give me your opinion on this matter and whether based on this limited information should I consider relocating. Again many thanks for such fantastic work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,38,39,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-treatment","category-all-topics","category-side-effects","category-starting-treatment","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}