Your medications
Your HIV medications are lifesaving and keeps your immune system healthy and your HIV virus low.
The only way to stop HIV from destroying your immune cells is to take your HIV meds every day. By taking your HIV medications every day, you will always have enough medicine in your body to treat the virus. You will live as long as anyone else without HIV.
What happens if I stop taking my medication?
If you stop taking your HIV medication, the virus will quickly start making copies of itself again. This usually happens between 2 to 6 days after you stop your meds.
What happens if I miss a dose?
Don’t feel bad if you forget to take your meds once or twice. Life is busy and it can happen.
When you take your pills every day the right amount of medication stays in your blood to fight the HIV. If you miss taking your meds too many times, there won’t be enough meds in your blood to fight the HIV. The HIV then gets a chance to start making copies again.
There are many reasons people forget to take their medications. If you are feeling well, it is easy to forget to take your medication every day. Taking pills every day could also remind you of your health condition.
Tips to remember to take your meds every day
Just like you have a routine for getting to school or work on time, create a routine for taking your meds.
Set the alarm on your cell phone to remind you when to take your meds.
Pick something you do everyday and take your meds at the same time like brushing your teeth or having breakfast.
Understanding resistance
Resistance is when your medications have stopped working for you.
How does resistance happen?
When HIV makes copies of itself, it sometimes can change what it looks like. These are called mutations. These mutations can help the virus survive, even when you are taking your HIV meds. When this happens, you have become resistant to your medications.
The more often you miss your meds, or are late taking your meds, the bigger chance you have of becoming resistant to your medication.
If the virus in your blood increases even if you are taking your meds everyday, this could be because of drug resistance. That is why having regular blood tests is so important. Your blood tests tell your doctors if your medications are working.
If a blood test shows that you are resistant to your meds, you will probably have to switch to a different HIV drug. These might have other side effects that you won’t like, and you might end up taking more pills each day than before.
Remember, the best way to prevent resistance is to stick to taking your meds every day.