Pep Side Effects

[gay87]

First of all, I wanted to apologies if I made this on a wrong forum

I'm on pep 3rd day, 5th doses, my body feeling really weird

1st day - diarrhea x 4

2nd day - increased fatigue, diarrhea x3,

3rd day- fatigue , diarrhea and counting, nausea and sweating for 15 mins

Will this ever gets better I'm taking my dose religiously , am now afraid to pop my 6th dose later tonight

[fillmyholeftl]

Question... Why 5 doses in 3 days?? I didn't think it called for taking 2 to start... that could be cause of the GI issues. Was at a PreP seminar Friday & heard that the GI side effects, mostly (90 something %) go away in 30 days.  treat the symptoms...

[gay87]

Go away in 30 days? I'm taking pep for 28 days..

I heard pep dosage are stronger, maybe that's why..

I have to take 2 drugs regimen per 12 hours,

Currently feeling better, symptoms are on and off

[sinfuljock]

PEP is different than PrEP.

 

PEP is post exposure and prep is pre exposure. pep is basically the morning after pill for hiv (though of course more than one simple pill) so the does are higher and there are several different meds that are prescribed as pep. 

 

PrEP is pre exposure. It is a this point only Truvada, and is a lower dose and one pill per day. Takes a few days (I've herd from 3 days to 2 weeks..my doctor recommended two weeks to be safe (lol) though I think most say a week) to build up in your system. After this as long as you keep taking regularly your risk for HIV is drastically reduced.

[bearbandit]

Which drugs are you taking? If one of them is twice a day it's probably Isentriss (raltegravir) which has a pretty low side effect profile. But different doctors prescribe different drugs for PEP: basically you're on the same sort of regime as a PwHIV. I'm afraid I can only offer advice if I know which drugs (I've been poz so long that I've taken most of them at one point or another)

[gay87]

Hi bear bandit ! Thanks for replying

) start pep exactly 24 hours later, 2 orange pill(lopinavir 200mg, ritonavir 50mg) and a white pill , lamivudine 150mg + zidovudine 300mg, 2 doses daily

Currently just took 9th doses, day 5 of medication , this is the first time in my life I actually adhere to medications for more than 2 days

Current symptom: lesser diarrhea, no more nausea , still have a little fatigue , looks like I'm getting customed to the drugs, I'm still keeping my fingers cross though

If I start pep on the 24 hour mark, what are the effectiveness? I read and researched, the value seems to be 50-90% which is a great variance

[bearbandit]

Effectiveness depends on your genetic make-up as well as the drugs. For instance 8% of northern Europeans have a gene that makes the popular drug abacavir potentially fatal. Trust me: I'm one of them! So all you can do now is take the pills without missing any doses and up that they work. Starting them at the 24 hour mark greatly enhances your chances. PEP is a "soon as you can" solution: after 72 hours it's pretty much ineffective as HIV gets a foothold fast. Here's hoping your luck holds!

The drugs are pretty heavy chemicals, so it's not surprising that many have side effects when they start them. I'm afraid all you can do is wait them out. Some imodium would help with the diarrhoea (the lopinavir/ritonavir combination causes that - the protease inhibitors are infamous for diarrhoea!). Try eating higher fibre foods than usual: muesli as a cereal will help a bit too.

You're doing well to have the side effects subside so quickly. When you research anything to do with HIV, disregard anything that was published before 2014 (unless it's an opinion piece) - things really are changing that fast. Again, best of luck: you've got everything going in your favour...

[gay87]

Thanks for the inputs again bear bandit, I'm of Asian origins, hence I don't think I would have the potential reaction to the drug

I've always been taking raw loads and then regret about it later,

It's a shame that my country approved pep, and not prep prep is still under approval stage, I did some gay health survey and mailed some organization here, we are only considering prep,

We are a very conservation country with a closed culture, whereby we will be thinking the approval of prep would encourage more risky behaviour, heck ! How shallow is that thinking!

Yeah, also a pretty much homophobic country,

[gay87]

Day 5: almost no symptom, except for 3 cases of diarrhea

Day 6: vomited for the first time, vomited 3 hours after morning medication, reduced appetite,

Day 7: nausea, took nausea medication, watery diarhoea is back

At least fatigue is gone, headache is gone,

[gay87]

After 12 days of pep, I went back to a different doctor at the same clinic for follow up, he now switched me to truvada and another pill atazanavir/ritonavir 300/100mg, said to be more effective and lesser side effects,

Do u have any experience dealing w these? Many thanks for your help again