{"id":456,"date":"2008-05-20T10:51:05","date_gmt":"2008-05-20T09:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i-base.info\/qa\/?p=456"},"modified":"2021-11-22T12:18:26","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T12:18:26","slug":"how-quickly-should-my-cd4-and-viral-load-change-after-starting-meds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/456","title":{"rendered":"How quickly should my CD4 and viral load change after starting meds?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks for your question.<\/p>\n<p>Viral load responds to treatment very quickly &#8211; probably by one &#8216;log&#8217; in the first few days (ie from 24,000 to 2,400) and another &#8216;log&#8217; in the next week or two (from 2,400 to 240). A &#8216;log&#8217; is a factor of ten and an easy way to see a log is to knock off the last number.<\/p>\n<p>No-one has their viral load measured this early except in research studies, so guidelines say your viral load should drop by at least one log in the first month and be less than 50 copies\/mL (undetectable) within the first 3-6 months).<\/p>\n<p>CD4 responses can vary a lot. Although some people get quicker rises, slow and steady increases are probably better. As long as your CD4 count is over 200, then your risk of any HIV-related complication is very low.<\/p>\n<p>If you feel tired, then talk to you doctor about this and fatigue can be a symptom of some rare but serious side effects.<\/p>\n<p>Stocrin (efavirenz) can cause sleep disturbance (because a side effect includes vivid dreams or nightmares), and if you are not sleeping well, this may explain why you are tired. See <a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/guides\/side\/cns-side-effects\">this link for more info<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>7 weeks ago, I was started on Kivexa (abacavir+3TC) and Stocrin (efavirenz), all once daily.<\/p>\n<p>I do feel better &#8211; however I am worried about treatment failure as I still feel very very tired. My viral load was 24,000 copies\/mL and my CD4 was 230. The question is: How soon will the combination work against my viral load and how soon will the CD4 count begin to rise?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for this forum, which is absolutely needed. I am living in Denmark and there is no such thing. To make things even worse right now there is a health strike in Denmark so nothing works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-cd4-and-viral-load"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","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=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}