Complera and carbamazepine

[le_liseur]

Hello everyone!

I haven't been posting for a long time on the forum, but I have been reading it weekly, and almost everyday for the last few weeks. I just started medications (Complera) on July 1st and, so far, I've had no side effects at all. I'm very happy with it, and taking my pill in the morning with a nice breakfast suits me well. My numbers were good (last test was CD4s over 1000, VL of around 8,000, and I've been diagnosed almost 4 years ago) , but after discussing with my doctor (HIV specialist, not generalist), I decided to start treatment (because of long-term inflammation and because I'm in a steady relationship with a seronegative guy, which is also going very well! woohoo! )

So, getting to my question now... I had a weird feeling on the left side of my face about 12 days ago, that didn't go away with time. Just so you know, this started before I took my first Complera. My eye was heavy, sometimes blood-shot like. I saw a doctor at my clinic to see what it could be and he believes it is trigeminal neuralgia. I do not feet heavy pain, only some weird numbness, sometimes a little, little pain, but only if I press really hard on the area where the nerve is (forehead, below the eye, and chin). The feeling would go on, and fade away after a while, or if I put a wet cloth on the eye. We still need to make sure this is it, and not something else like herpes zoster. He prescribed me 200mg of carbamazepine three times a day until Monday. Likely to continue for a few more days after. Do any one of you knows if there are bad interactions with Complera for a low dose of it over a short period of time, especially at the beginning of my Complera treatment?

Also, anyone knows what to take if you have trigeminal neuralgia and HIV? Is this common in HIV+ population?

Thanks to anyone who read this long post!

[le_liseur]

I have been taking carbamazepine (tegretol) for a the last 4 days, at 200mg each, and it has been good so far. The doctor actually saw me again on Monday, and seeing it seemed better with the numbness feeling on my side and my eye, he prescribed it for twice a day instead of 3 times a day, for the next week or so.

I didn't have any side effect, except some dizziness on Monday morning, while getting ready for my appointment (kinda like if I was high hehe). I asked the pharmacist to be sure if it was ok to take it with my complera, and she said it will be fine for the dose and for the time it was prescribed to me.

And the doctor believes my neuralgia is viral, so the meds are actually kicking it out. I hope it doesn't actually get worst and that pain doesn't start to get too much there... :S Anyone every dealt with neuralgia (trigeminal) here? If so, what do you take to control it in the long term?