B99:
This is just a question that popped in to my head. I am going to the drug websites and doing my research so that when I have to start therapy I have an understanding of my options; and I was at the Sustiva website and it said proven to suppress viral load for 6 years. That doesn't seem like that long. A lot of you all on this site have said you have been on treatment for years, but I don't get a sense of how many of you have had to change the drugs you were using because of drug resistance/adherance, or side effects. Are there a lot of people out of treatment options? They say that your first combo is the best for longterm suppression. Who has had the longest suppression with their initial combo? Are there still people on the same combo after 10, 15 years? Basically, I'm trying to get an idea about how many times those with HIV change combos, and what are the reasons. Having to switch every 3 years is a lot different than every 10 years.
ademas:
I started on the Crixivan/AZT/3TC trial in '94, and I was in the lucky 1/3rd who received all the real drugs. I stayed on that combo until about 2000, and then switched to Sustiva/Combivir--not due to failure, but in hopes that the lipidystrophy would be less or stop (particularly the buffalo hump I was starting to grow). It did stop growing, in fact, and I've been on the Sustiva/Combivir ever since. I'm just now looking into my other options--again, not due to failure, but due to side affects that I can't get a handle on.
DCGuy511:
I'm not sure if a lot of people actually know how long their combo will work. It is only since HAART (using 3 different drugs in combination) that we see successful viral suppression, so that means we only have 10-14 years of data to analyze. I think that Sustiva has only been on the market for 8 years so there would be a limited amount of data about how long it works for the "average" person. It is my understanding that treatment-naive people who started HAART have less instances of drug failure than those who started treatment when there was only a few options. We also now do the RNA or DNA tests on patients' virus before initiating drug therapy to prevent failure from occurring as often. I've been told by two different doctors that they do not know for certain that a combonation will eventually fail.
There are more knowledgable members of the forum than myself, they may have different views.
B99:
Yeah, I know there is limit data because HAART has only been around for a relatively short time, and it does get complicated because there was a lot of people on monotherapy before that, whom because of that have have developed/are developing drug restistance. But there really is not a study out there with empirical data. So I'm just trying to take an informal one. A census of those who use this site. The ones who were pre-HAART and those who started treatment during HAART era. Who is still on their original combo, and if they switched why? I see a lot about resistence and failure, etc, but I can never find any real evidence that these people are citing. So I want to talk to the people and see what the experience is like.
Jacques:
Hi B99,
I'm on Haart since 1996. Began with AZT, 3TC, Crixivan. Had to switch Crixivan for Kaletra in 2002 because of kidhey stones problem. I have been undetectable since 1996 and still continue to be.
3 weeks ago , I decided to switch all this for the new"fashionable" combo Truvada/Reyataz that is supposed to be kinder for lipid levels. Should it work well, I will keep on this combo as long as possible.