Side-effects

Side-effects features

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  Growing pain

  As people with HIV live longer, they are facing pains old and new. David McLay reports on peripheral neuropathy and arthritis....

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Managing kidney disease in people living with HIV

  Part of a series on kidney disease in resource-limited settings. This edition looks at assessment and management of kidney disease in people with HIV....

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  Acute and chronic kidney disease

  Part of a series on kidney disease in resource-limited settings. This edition looks at the causes and prevalence of acute and chronic kidney disease in...

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  HIV and the kidneys

  It’s becoming increasingly clear that, when it comes to HIV, amongst the most vulnerable organs in the body are those two little waste filters in the small...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Will a long life be a good one?

  People with HIV are now living into old age – an old age many regard with fear, as Lisa Power from the Terrence Higgins Trust finds...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Skeleton key: a guide to HIV-related bone loss

  Many people with HIV are at risk of osteoporosis – a progressive thinning of the bones that can lead to breakage. Derek Thaczuk looks at who...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Body fat changes in people with HIV: a clinical review

  This article reviews the antiretroviral side-effect of lipoatrophy (fat loss) in resource-limited settings....

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  Switching from efavirenz to nevirapine in women with higher CD4 counts

  This issue provides an overview of the risks and benefits, and real-life experiences, of switching from efavirenz to nevirapine in women with higher CD4 counts,...

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  Peripheral neuropathy in people with HIV in resource-limited settings

  This article provides an overview of peripheral neuropathy in people with HIV, resulting from the toxic side effects of medication, diabetes or other condtions...

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  Peripheral neuropathy: diagnosis and treatment

  This article looks at the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral neuropathy especially in relation to antiretrovirals. ...

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

Side-effects in your own words

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  Peripheral neuropathy – the sting in the tail

  To begin: It is estimated that between 30% and 40% of HIV patients will develop neuropathy. In the United States alone, there are 20 million sufferers (from...

  From:In your own words

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  Living with peripheral neuropathy

  I didn’t know, at first, why my feet hurt so bad. I would wake up every 90 minutes or so every night. Because of the ‘way’ they...

  From:In your own words

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  Starting treatment wasn't as scary as I thought!

  I started learning about HIV treatment soon after I was first diagnosed. I had ‘the chat’ with someone, after I got my results – I...

  From:In your own words

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  Getting into the habit

  I try to take my HIV drugs at the same time every day, just before bed. I used to set an alarm on my mobile,...

  From:In your own words

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  Holiday hassles and HRT

  A much-needed holiday. Tickets, passports, driving licence – all go in my hand luggage. I leave the toiletry bag out till the last minute. I...

  From:In your own words

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  'I just take the tablets and get on with my life'

  I was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1997. I'm now 65. It was a bit of a shock. It could never happen to me, after all. I...

  From:In your own words

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  Starting treatment

  Following my HIV diagnosis in August 2001, my doctor estimated that I would be looking to start therapy in around six years. But following a...

  From:In your own words

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  Life on HIV treatment – a personal perspective

  I’ve been taking HIV treatment for ten years – that's longer than the average life expectancy of someone with HIV when I was diagnosed back in 1991. I’ve...

  From:In your own words

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  My life with HIV

  I was born in Zambia in 1973 and came to England in April 1994 to live with my cousin to help her look after her...

  From:In your own words

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  Time will tell

  I was devastated when I got the news that I was HIV-positive. But I was lucky to have such a supportive GP. It was thanks...

  From:In your own words

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  Finally undetectable!

  After almost 15 years of HIV, and six years of viral load testing, I heard on Thursday, June 21st 2001 that my viral load had...

  From:In your own words

Side-effects news from aidsmap

• Treatment switches becoming less common, side-effects still the key reason for switching

  The number of people who need to change their antiretroviral drug regimen has declined significantly in recent years, Alison Boyle of the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London told the British HIV Association (BHIVA) conference in Birmingham last week. Pharmacists and ...

  24 April 2012 | Roger Pebody

• Tenofovir use during pregnancy doesn't affect infant size or weight at birth, but may by one year of age

  Use of tenofovir during pregnancy does not have an adverse impact on infant weight or size at birth, according to a large US study published in the online edition of AIDS. The study involved the HIV-negative infants of HIV-positive ...

  03 April 2012 | Michael Carter

• Lipoatrophy common in children receiving d4T in South Africa

  Exposure to d4T (stavudine) among young children in sub-Saharan Africa remains the greatest risk factor for lipodystrophy syndrome (that includes lipoatrophy and lipohypertrophy) for a significant proportion of children, urgently highlighting the need for early detection of abnormal body fat ...

  07 March 2012 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• Severe nevirapine rash linked to slow clearance of drug

  The risk of severe rash when taking the antiretroviral drug nevirapine is greater in women who clear the drug from their bloodstreams slowly, and clearance of the drug appears to be slower in African women, according to a pharmacokinetic analysis ...

  20 February 2012 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• HIV treatment reduces risk of fractures

  Treatment with antiretroviral drugs reduces the risk of low-impact fractures, according to a case-controlled study published in the on-line edition of AIDS. Investigators compared fracture incidence between patients taking HIV therapy and non-treated individuals. Despite the overall beneficial effect of treatment, ...

  14 February 2012 | Michael Carter

• Tenofovir associated with increased risk of kidney disease

  Treatment with tenofovir is associated with a modestly increased risk of three key markers of kidney disease, US investigators report in the online edition of AIDS. The large study involved over 10,000 patients who started antiretroviral therapy between 1997 and ...

  13 February 2012 | Michael Carter

• Limited evidence that vitamin D supplements of any benefit for patients with HIV

  There is only scant evidence that vitamin D supplementation is of benefit for patients with HIV, according to UK investigators writing in the January 28th  edition of AIDS. The authors conducted a systematic review of studies examining the prevalence ...

  10 January 2012 | Michael Carter

• Europeans find high prevalence of lipodystrophy in HIV-positive children

  A European study published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes has found a high prevalence of body fat changes and elevated lipids in HIV-positive children. Treatment with d4T (stavudine, Zerit) and a ...

  05 January 2012 | Michael Carter

• Raltegravir kinder to bones and body fat than boosted protease inhibitors in Spanish trial

  Raltegravir (Isentress)-based treatment appears to have a more favourable impact on fat accumulation and bone metabolism compared to therapy based on a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor, according to Spanish research published in the online edition of AIDS. The study involved ...

  28 November 2011 | Michael Carter

• Product information for raltegravir updated to warn of Stevens Johnson syndrome and hypersensitivity reaction

  Product information for the HIV integrase inhibitor raltegravir (Isentress) has been updated in the US. The “Warnings and Precautions” section now cautions that rare cases of Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a severe and potentially life-threatening skin reaction, have been associated with the drug, ...

  10 November 2011 | Michael Carter

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Side-effects news selected from other sources

• Incivek Rash Reports: What HIV/Hepatitis C-Coinfected People Need to Know

  It turns out that Incivek (telaprevir), one of the HCV protease inhibitors approved last year, is also associated with rash. About half of patients who take Incivek get a rash. It can sometimes be itchy, too. Most of the time the rash is mild or moderate.

  18 May 2012 | The Body

• Doubt Cast on the ‘Good’ in ‘Good Cholesterol’

  A study in the Lancet that makes use of powerful databases of genetic information has found that raising the levels of high-density lipoprotein HDL, the so-called 'good' cholesterol, may not reduce heart disease risk as was thought.

  17 May 2012 | New York Times

• Gilead’s Quad Pill Raises Kidney Questions, FDA Says

  Gilead Sciences Inc's experimental HIV pill Quad may need additional monitoring because of kidney damage seen in studies, U.S. regulators said.

  09 May 2012 | Bloomberg Business Week

• Why it's time to say goodbye to stavudine...everywhere

  Concerns about a proposed comparative trial of 40mg and 20mg (low-dose) stavudine in South Africa.

  16 April 2012 | South African Journal of HIV Medicine

• Genetic testing for drug intolerance

  Intolerance to a drug is something most people learn about themselves only after it's prescribed. "There are some tumour drugs, for certain cancers, that 70% of the population won't respond to. For some asthma drugs, it's 40%," says Dingermann, who has been collecting research on the topic for the past four years.

  16 April 2012 | The Guardian

• CROI: Crofelemer Reduces Diarrhea in People with HIV; FDA Grants Priority Review

  A plant compound known as crofelemer significantly decreased the frequency of secretory diarrhea in HIV positive patients, researchers reported at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2012) last month in Seattle. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given crofelemer priority review status and is expected to take action by early June.

  13 April 2012 | HIVandHepatitis.com

• Can I Get A Witness! Authentic Voices Tell the Story of Neuropathy

  Authors, scientists, doctors, journalists and bloggers can write about neuropathy until they're blue in the face but there's no substitute for hearing people tell their own stories. This post is therefore given over to some of the men and women with both HIV and Neuropathy who have opened their hearts on forums and in blogs across the Net. There are many, many more!

  12 April 2012 | The Body

• CROI: Switching to Tenofovir Increases Bone Turnover, Raltegravir Can Improve Bone Density

  HIV positive people who substituted tenofovir (Viread) for zidovudine (AZT; Retrovir) in their antiretroviral regimen showed elevated levels of biomarkers associated with bone turnover and decreased bone mineral density (BMD), researchers reported at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2012) last month in Seattle.

  11 April 2012 | HIVandHepatitis.com

• CROI 2012 Really Rapid Review, by Dr Paul Sax

  21 March 2012 | The Body

• ARV Liver Toxicity in HIV/Hep C Coinfected Patients on the Decline

  Rates of antiretroviral (ARV)-associated liver toxicity among people living with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) have decreased since 1997, but it is still more common among people infected with both viruses compared with people infected only with HIV. 

  16 March 2012 | AIDSMeds

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