Many people with HIV report that they miss occasional doses of medication, and
according to compliance research conducted at the Chelsea and Westminster
hospital in London, regular, planned interruptions in combination therapy were
strongly associated with use of stimulant drugs such as Ecstasy, amongst gay men
taking protease inhibitors.
But what happens when you take a longer break
from medication, either because of a drug interaction or because you simply want
a psychological break from taking pills? POZ magazine editor Sean Strub recently
took several weeks off from his demanding triple regimen. Read his disturbing
account of what happened next at
The
consequences of a drug holiday may be equally serious in people who begin
treatment prior to seroconversion, according to a recent report in Annals of
Internal Medicine. A man in Los Angeles began anti-retroviral therapy five days
into an acute seroconversion illness, but stopped his AZT/3TC/ritonavir regimen
because of side effects after six months. Within a month he had developed an
illness indistinguishable from his original seroconversion illness, and his
viral load rebounded after nearly five months below the limit of detection. Read