Treatment Pause

[felixthecat1973]

        Hi everyone I just found this forum and think its a fantastic way of getting information. So now Ive got a question. Ive recntly stopped taking my meds (Dr. monitored) . I feel fine and to say the truth I dont even feel a change. I was on a combo for many years and now Ive become resistant to this combo. My t cell count has always stayed at around 800 and still is even without medication. What Im worried about is that my viral load is slowly creeping up.Its always mostly been undetectable. Now Im at around 5,000 replications. Should I be worried , should I think of going back on meds? Is my Doctor nuts by suggesting I wait it out? If anyone has any experiences Id be glad to know. Also Ive been positive for 14 years.
Cheers!

[gerry]

Hello and welcome.  It sounds like you started meds while your CD4 was still high and you were able to maintain it up.  If you have developed resistance to the meds, your options would have been to switch or take a break from the meds.  Your high CD4 allowed you to opt for the latter without any immediate dangers.  Stopping the meds would almost always lead to viral load rebound.  Yours, at 5000, is actually quite low.  Whether or not this is where it would stay depends on several more labs over a course of time to see where you are trending.  Very few people achieve and remain undetectable without meds (long-term non-progressors/elite controllers - there are a few threads by some members here who are in that category), but yours is still low enough, and if it remains this low, it would probably not cause dramatic drops in your CD4 over a period of time.  So enjoy the treatment break.