Biktarvy nausea

[SBnew]

Hi guys.

So i was diagnosed in spring, started biktarvy in july.
I had a lot of nausea from the virus itself, now im undetecable but my nausea is so bad. It starts 15 minutes after i eat and lasts for hours, i have to cancel everything when its bad, because transport like bus or car is just making it worse.
It feels like everything in my tummy, is doing a tumbling cycle in the dryer. I have extra saliva in my mouth and my poop is either hard or fluid.

So my doc said i was on the best medication but decided to stop me on biktarvy for 4 days, the nausea was a bit better but not all gone. She thought that it wasnt the meds then.. but when i started the meds two days ago, the next day my nausea was at a 100 again.. had to stay home from my nephews birthday today.. been crying on the sofa for the last hour.. i am so done.. i feel like i dont have a social life anymore..
I was told i could live my life normally - this is not normal 

Im gonna Call the hospital monday and tell them..
i just needed to vent and see if any other of you have had the same problem.

[Tonny2]

               ojo.              Hi there!!





Welcome to rhe forum…I’m sorry you are having this problem. How did you take your med, with ir without food?. There are meds to help you with the bausea even eating salty crackers…if you keep having side effects, change treatmenr… please keep us posted and I hope you get better…hugs

[leatherman]

do you have this nausea after taking your medication or every time you eat? If it's every time you eat, you need to talk to your doctor about what else this problem could be because that's probably not caused by the medication.

However, if you're gone half a year with terrible nausea, your doctor really should have already suggested you try a different medication after the first 2 months.

Also your doctor should have never told you to stop meds for 4 days and then restart. That kind of haphazard taking of meds can lead to resistance.

By the way there is no such thing as the "best medication". There are a number of medication regimens that are one pill a day, and many that are 2 or more a day. None are "better" than the others. Because everyone is a little different, for each person sometimes some meds work better than others. That's why your doctor should have suggested a different medication long before you had to suffer like this for 6 months. While sometimes a person might experience nausea for a few weeks getting used to a medication, 6 months is entirely too long.

talk to your doctor about another regimen/pill. You might, if you have the option, consider getting a second opinion or another doctor

[SBnew]

It is after everytime i eat, about 15-30 minutes after.
Yea maybe i havent been too good at explaining just how bad it is, but i am calling monday and saying that i cant deal with this.
When i started treatment they said if i cant handle biktarvy, they have a lot of other meds i could change too.. but they have been quite slow and resistent to change me because biktarvy is a new and easy one.
But i hope they will change me monday, because this is just horrible.

[Jim Allen]

Also your doctor should have never told you to stop meds for 4 days and then restart. That kind of haphazard taking of meds can lead to resistance.

By the way there is no such thing as the "best medication".

You might, if you have the option, consider getting a second opinion or another doctor

100%

[Jim Allen]

Unfortunately, with HIV and the damage, infections, meds and other factors gut issues are common enough, but that doesn't mean acceptable to be left unmanageable.

It could be several issues or a combination of them. If it were my own HIV care, my minimum expectations to start with and demand would be to check a stool sample as we were prone to certain infections as a group.  Anyhow, I wish you well and for the short term, prehaps try the BRAT diet until the issue is resolved.

I did have issues with diarrhoea for a long time; I would eat, and then it would come out the other end just as fast, so the typical HIV stuff and the eating (500 grams) daily probiotic yoghurt worked to settle things within a few days, and I stuck with eating that for a few years.

Anyhow, wishing you well.

https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/nausea-vomiting-diarrhea

[leatherman]

Yea maybe i havent been too good at explaining just how bad it is, but i am calling monday and saying that i cant deal with this.

Don't kick yourself. Advocating for your best healthcare is often hard.

After 30 years of my own HIV treatments, and the experiences of being caregiver for my two late partners, a friend, and my grandmother, I learned that the time a person most needs to advocate for their own healthcare is usually the same time it's most hard to advocate for that care.

There's nothing like signing papers to check yourself out of a hospital against medical advice to go home and die. That was a damned hard healthcare decision to make. Thankfully my roommate at the time was a nurse and we talked long and hard before we made that decision. Boy was I glad to have someone there willing and able to help me make that decision - and then explain the reasoning to a doctor enough to get them to see my point.

But it's just as hard sometimes to make healthcare decisions when you're not on the verge of death but just feel "bad". How many days do you vomit until you know the medical treatment isn't working best for you? Do you give it a little bit longer? Can you do something to compensate or stop the side effect? How hard do you push your doctor to understand how real and bad your side effects are? Those are the times when it's hard to advocate for what you need. (I took in a 3 month calendar marked with every time I vomited to proof to my doctor that saying I was barfing alllll the time wasn't just exaggeration.

Not that I'm trying to diss any doctor (because while I've had 2 bad doctors, I've also had 2 GREAT doctors in all the years); but sometimes doctors are quick to prescribe a medication and move on without really taking into account a patient's issues with the med. But it's not all their fault; most of the time with today's drugs you get a prescription and you get HIV under control and that's it. I think it makes some doctors get complacent. And that means a patient who is having an issue has to advocate for themselves even harder to get a doctor to pay the right amount of attention to a problem.

It is after everytime i eat, about 15-30 minutes after.

in the spirit of advocating for yourself, keep in mind that everything isn't HIV-related either. Age can be a factor. Being very ill with HIV (high VL and low cd4) can impact your immune system enough to "trigger" other issues. Other issues could just be happening.

Having nausea and diarrhea soon after eating could be a sign of Chron's Disease or Diverticulitis. Just make sure as you talk to your doctor about these issues (your negative side effects and changing meds) that you both explore all options.

also make sure to follow some of the other advice here. Even if you changed meds tomorrow and there were no side effects, you have been unwell for a while and it will take time to recover. make sure to try the BRAT diet.

best wishes in getting to the bottom of and resolving this terrible issue.