Would Isentress monotherapy be the kiss of death?

[uncertain]

NO I AM NOT GONNA DO IT... but I read that it takes one to two years to become resistant and was wondering if possible then you could switch to tivicay.  Or perhaps to integrase inhibitors.  I really would like to try to stay as nuke, protease free as possible.  I study like crazy, I know monotherapy eventually fails... I was just wondering in a treatment naive who is adherent if they could get a year or two out of it and perhaps there could be a substitute after, and I could have my more or less side effect free life.... BUT NO, i am not doing it, but i would like to try a regime that is non nuke, but  my body does not support norvir, isentress fine, and apart from the horrific hair loss, the truvada seems ok, but do any of you just forget what your saying midsentence.  It often happens at work, feel early alzheimers....

[uncertain]

I meant two integrase inhibitors together....

[ad2san]

Hi there,

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to tell. Go for Monotherapy and you'll die ... like my friends that got infected before the tri-therapy .... all gone, no exception.

with Truvada and Isentress you're with one of the best, easiest, side-effect less, therapy that ever existed.
So take it easy.

Cheers

[uncertain]

I agree, but I was caught within 4 weeks of infection, and the truvada seems to be making my hair fall out in major clumps, I look a bit like a chemo patient, a nifty hairdresser friend but 8 extensions in yesterday as this is all so sudden and i wore a hat to work... but in my job, it would really hurt my income to lose my hair, not just a vanity thing..... so there ARE dual therapies like isentress and intelence.... and Dr. Perrone says they work very well in a lot of his patients (on the body) so while all your friends may be dead, there are other regimes to try!

[ad2san]

Hi uncertain,

have you considered stress as a possible cause for your hair loss.

Of course no one can take the decision for you.

Take care

[uncertain]

No because the entire hair has changed texture yet my fingernails are healthy as ever, I do not drink, smoke, eat well, and take supplements.... so yes I do believe it is from the drug or one of them and after a phone conversation with my doc, and how great my nails are, she agrees it is probably one of the drugs, so hopefully we can switch something out.  I see my team Friday.

[mecch]

I personally think you need to chill out about your treatment and focus on other things. 

OK cool, if finally a "team" of medical doctors decide your hair is falling out because of a few weeks on HAART and furthermore, this "team" is willing to switch you so quickly, after an infection and treatment, OK, fine.  See if it helps...

I personally would guess you are going through immune reconstitution. 

Reading between the lines, I think you are distracted by and ambivalent about treatment, seeing as you are looking everyday to hope you might be among some "15%" of functionally cured, eventually, and so on and so on. 

The insistence on resuming what seems like a strenuous work out routine, when what you need (needed?) was rest, and so on.
 
Whatever might shake out about your early treatment, its going to be a while before you are in some potential zone, so best just to chill.  Isentress truvada is brilliant and you'll be building back pretty quickly, but sometimes I get the impression you want everything back to "original" instantaneously.  My experience is that being HIV+ doesn't really work that way.

[uncertain]

its true, these sides and changes make me want to jump off a cliff half the time.

[uncertain]

I personally think you need to chill out about your treatment and focus on other things. 

OK cool, if finally a "team" of medical doctors decide your hair is falling out because of a few weeks on HAART and furthermore, this "team" is willing to switch you so quickly, after an infection and treatment, OK, fine.  See if it helps...

I personally would guess you are going through immune reconstitution. 

Reading between the lines, I think you are distracted by and ambivalent about treatment, seeing as you are looking everyday to hope you might be among some "15%" of functionally cured, eventually, and so on and so on. 

The insistence on resuming what seems like a strenuous work out routine, when what you need (needed?) was rest, and so on.
 
Whatever might shake out about your early treatment, its going to be a while before you are in some potential zone, so best just to chill.  Isentress truvada is brilliant and you'll be building back pretty quickly, but sometimes I get the impression you want everything back to "original" instantaneously.  My experience is that being HIV+ doesn't really work that way.

I have been on haart 3 months, my hair has started falling out in clumps in one weeks time.  IT IS NOT  NORMAL, my friends are shocked, AND it is not imagined and unlikely stress induced.  So whether or not its something of course "I dont want to deal with"... I AGREE, but the reality is it is severe, extremely emotionally destructive and after 3 months, well worth trying something new.... we each deal with this is our own way.

[mecch]

I hope you get some hypothesis, or diagnosis from the doc.  Furthermore, I hope its not permanent and you recover soon.  Hey I wanted to say Im not thinking you imagined this!  You have been through the wringer these months I hope you find some calmer weeks and months soon. I still do think you got to find a way to not be checking everyday about cures... that may or may not realise somewhere down the road. Also whatever was normal may never be again.  You could be losing your hair purely through the stress..  And again, maybe something to do with iris.  Or yes, as you suspect, perhaps something to do with a medicine... I dunno.  Not sure why you dismiss extreme stress as an unlikely cause:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-and-hair-loss/AN01442

Do you have ways to reduce the extreme anxiety and anguish about all this. First the muscles. now the hair loss.  Does your "team" include attention to your mental anguish? 
Maybe you could use some anti-anxiety meds to get through this stressful time... I dunno.

[mecch]

Again, a distant, impartial reading, and yeah, not based on knowing how you live at all, but just of your posts, your words, between the lines you don't like the HAART and are not OK with them yet.  You want to switch them, reduce them, dream of a time you will be off them, etc, etc.  Its a human reaction, but you might want to think about this observation. 
I had a violent seroconversion, viral loads in the millions, and didn't start for about 3 months or so.  My first year on HAART I had a series of annoying side effects, some that stumped doctors, but also which eventually passed. 
I embraced medicine from the first dose. I was so damned grateful.  Even that rather unpleasant first combo of Sustiva....

Just telling you, that was my mindset - I loved the drugs.  Thank you thank you thank you science.  Guess because I was wasting away in just a month or two with that viral load - got so thin, so fast! Tired, too. And 20 years before, I lived through hideous life experiences with friends and lovers who didn't have HAART. So I was just so grateful.  I kept that gratitude in my mind the first year, despite the annoying side effects, it helped keep my focus in a positive realm. 

Just sharing that idea with you.