Like all medicines, the drugs used to treat HIV can cause side-effects. These are most likely to occur when you first start taking a drug, but they are often mild and usually lessen or go away completely with time. You can find more information on possible side-effects and how to manage them in NAM’s patient information booklet Side-effects.

Some anti-HIV drugs can cause you to feel or be sick. Your doctor should offer to prescribe anti-nausea medication (antiemetics) at the start of any course of treatment that may cause these side-effects. Taking an anti-nausea medicine about 30 minutes before your anti-HIV drugs can help to prevent these symptoms.

Diarrhoea is a possible side-effect of most anti-HIV drugs. It often goes away after a few weeks or months of taking the drug. It can normally be controlled by anti-diarrhoea medication. Your doctor should offer to prescribe this for you if you are starting a treatment that can cause diarrhoea, or it can be bought over the counter at a pharmacy.

If you have diarrhoea for more than a few days, especially if you feel unwell, you should see your doctor. They may suggest you have a stool sample checked for infections.

Changes in diet have little effect on protease inhibitor and other drug-related diarrhoea. However treatments are available from doctors to try and control diarrhoea caused by drugs. These include Imodium (loperamide). This is available on prescription from your doctor or can be bought over the counter from chemists. Stronger anti-diarrhoea drugs, such as lomotil or octreotide, can be prescribed by your doctor.

Usually diarrhoea will settle down after a few days. Try and avoid coffee, raw vegetables and spicy food as they can make diarrhoea worse.

As diarrhoea may result in excessive loss of salts and water from the body it is important to drink plenty of fluids or special rehydration drinks. Eating foods like bananas, potatoes, chicken and fish will help you replace potassium, levels of which are commonly reduced in people with severe diarrhoea. Soluble fibre from natural sources like pulses, oats, bananas, apples and pears has also been shown to be effective against diarrhoea.

In many cases, avoiding foods that are high in fat, bulky fibre or lactose may help reduce the symptoms of diarrhoea.

If you are losing weight because of diarrhoea, it is important to speak to a dietitian as soon as possible who will work with you to develop a diet which is more appetising, or easy to absorb.

Increasing or decreasing the fibre content of your diet may help if you have irritable bowel syndrome, as might anti-spasmodic therapies such as Colofac.

This may be a direct consequence of the disintegration of drug capsules or tablets in the mouth, in which case strong mints or sweets, or brushing your teeth, may help take the taste away. Swallowing the medicines with a full glass of cold, still (non-carbonated) water can also help.

However, some drugs have been reported to cause changes in taste after the body has metabolised them. In some cases these are temporary and disappear after a few weeks, but in other cases they persist. You could try food flavourings or avoid foods which have become unpleasant. Or you may choose to talk to a dietitian, or speak to your doctor about changing your drugs, especially if you are taking your first anti-HIV combination.