Prep and Heart

[Seedthissub]

Anyone have experience with prep and also has a heart condition?

[BootmanLA]

51 minutes ago, Seedthissub said:

Anyone have experience with prep and also has a heart condition?

Others may chime in, but in doing some preliminary research, I found that the version of tenofovir in the newer oral version of PrEP (aka Descovy), known as TAF, is associated with more cardiac events than for the version of tenofovir in the older pill (aka Truvada). While Descovy is apparently easier on certain organs in your system than Truvada is, that's apparently not the case for heart issues, where the older formulation is apparently safer.

Obviously whoever prescribes PrEP for you (your PCP or ID specialist) should be in close contact with your cardiologist. Since PrEP users get lab work done on a regular basis, the prescribing doctor should be made aware, by the cardiologist, of what signs on the lab test results might merit a follow-up with the cardiologist as well.

[Guest]

I have hereditary heart disease and have been on prep for years. No issues. 

[Seedthissub]

Ty

[1stimebare]

I am on apretude and have a history of heart issues as well.  Doctor's would not let me do either truvada or descovy  tho it was the kidney doctor who ruled those out not the heart doctor.

[KylerIsTrash]

If you party like me the heart problems are more likely from the chem.

[boldfacealbie]

I had a heart attack 10 years ago.  I'm on PREP and there have been no issues whatsoever.  

[BootmanLA]

22 hours ago, boldfacealbie said:

I had a heart attack 10 years ago.  I'm on PREP and there have been no issues whatsoever.  

That's excellent news!

I will note - something we tend to forget in evaluating risks is that it's all relative. For instance, it could be that taking X medication doubles the risk of a heart attack in people who have Y heart condition. But if only 1 in 20 million people have Y heart condition, then it's not a high risk overall. And if the odds of a person with Y condition having a heart attack are 1 in 20,000, then doubling that - to 2 out of 20,000 people with the condition (who are 1 in 20 million) may not be a huge increase in risk at all.

Conversely, for a commonplace condition - like type 2 diabetes, with about 35 million people who have it) - something that increases the odds of a particular complication faced by a third of such patients by a factor of two would be significant - at least, something one might want to consider carefully and monitor closely.