Side effects of stopping meds.

[pozandsingle]

Besides the obvious viral load going up, can anyone explain other side effects from stopping meds?

[BootmanLA]

16 minutes ago, pozandsingle said:

Besides the obvious viral load going up, can anyone explain other side effects from stopping meds?

First, a quick review of the (limited) possible benefits: today's HIV medications, though much more powerful and at the same time milder than early meds, can and sometimes do take a toll on your body's functions. Notably, in some number of patients kidney function gets gradually impaired, but there can be ripple effects in other parts of your body. Those effects may or may not "reverse" if you go off meds, but for someone experiencing them, they shouldn't get worse (unless there are other factors at play).

It's important to remember, though, that some changes wrought by being on HIV treatment are much harder to reverse.

That said: the negative effects are multiple. Not only does your viral load go up, but your innate immune system keeps trying to fight off HIV, with more limited success than when you're on meds - and that success almost always ends up failing, meaning your immune system largely gives up the fight.

And just like HIV drugs can damage other parts of your body, so can HIV itself.

But in the interim, while your immune system is fighting and being gradually overwhelmed by HIV, other infections that you might readily fend off otherwise can take hold. At one time, before viral load counts and undetectable statuses were a thing, judging someone as having AIDS wasn't about the numbers; it was having one or more of some well-known "opportunistic infections" - things negative people only rarely get, but which were commonplace in people with advanced cases of HIV infection. Cognitive impairment is certainly possible, if HIV becomes rampant in your system. There are infections that can devastate your lungs, your eyes, your nervous system, and your gut. 

Some of these are treatable, some are not, and some of them can themselves be fatal.

In the long run, it's suicide. That doesn't mean you can't stop for a while, and go back on meds later (though doing so periodically may render those meds or meds made in part with those compounds ineffective), but that's not a decision I would recommend without consulting your doctor. It's possible he or she will agree as long as you continue to get routine blood screenings and commit to going back on meds when a particular threshold is reached. It's possible he or she won't.

The question I'd ask is, "Why?" Not saying there are no good reasons to do this in a particular case (and to be fair, no one owes anyone else an explanation for that kind of decision, except perhaps one's partner if one exists). But doing it because you're facing issues with side effects, and doing it because you're wanting to become toxic, are very different scenarios.

[120DaysofSodom]

I mean... the same thing that happens to everybody that has HIV and doesn't take medication... your WBC will plummet, you'll get really sick after a year or two probably, pneumonia, end up in an ICU, probably needing to be intubated, collapsed lungs, lesions on your body, incontinent, youll become skin and bones, then die.

Its not a pleasant way to go, and it is sad to waste away like so.

Is there a reason you are considering stopping your medication? Has it become inaccessible in some way?

Ultimately it is your decision what you do with your body and your life. I just hope you reconsider because there are ways for you to get medication if you feel like you wont be able to.