POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: wolfter on October 30, 2012, 04:27:04 pm
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Do people who have their viral loads UD thanks to medications have an increased chance of a rapid gain of the VL if they stop taking medication?
In early 2008, I was UD with a CD4 of 240. I stopped taking my meds for a while and resumed after a short breakdown without having resistance testing done. I had developed resistance without knowing it and continued taking that combo until I became increasingly sick and switched doctors.
By October I was down to single digit CD4's and a VL of 6.7 million. Normal progression doesn't typically occur this quickly and am wondering if there have been any studies showing a correlation.
I'm only wanting to information because I read every so often about people choosing to go off their meds for a variety of reason.
Wolfie
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i don't know any scientific facts; but for myself, I've gone off meds 3 times during the years (quality of life issues back then) and all three times I was back in the hospital with AIDS about to die (high VL , next to no CD4s, OIs galore) within 9 months max. (resistance happened every time too) Now was it because I had been so low previously that caused the rapid decline each time, which might not have happened if I had never gotten full blown aidsey, or some other reason? I dunno. ;)
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Ah, I hadn't calculated the importance of the CD4's while trying to determine the rapid increase. I was just thinking how long I went after diagnosis to AIDS and then the relatively short period with this past episode.
I imagine I had a whole bunch of CD4 buddies when first diagnosed as compared to even today.
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i recently thought about taking a 2-3 month break to see if Atripla was causing my daily headaches for the past 20 months.
my tcells have been in the 600 range for several years. (they did get down in the 250ish range at the lowest)
been on Atripla since it became available.
VL UD shortly after starting Atripla and has remained so with only one minor blip.
sounds like a change in meds might be a better way to go than a drug holiday.
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i sorta wondered about this myself. i seem to have progressed rapidly when i was infected. i had tested negative about 5 to 6 months earlier and got sick and my VL was huge and my CD4's were tanking around 250. I always found this was odd to progress that quickly.
I was thinking of asking my doctor if i could take a break since ive been having all these nerve issues, but I don't know if that would be a wise thing to do since the way i progressed from the get go.
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i progressed VERY slowly.
hence, i am still alive today after being infected 3o years ago WAY before life saving meds were available.
everyone seems to be different due to many factors including the particular strain of the virus, heredity, etc.
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NO BREAKS!!!! ;D That's part of the reason for wanting to see if there are any studies pertaining to this issue in regards to quicker vl increase. If I pinpointed my infection to testing period correctly, I went approximately 6 years until I progressed to AIDS.
But after going off meds, I was right back to suffering from AIDS in a mere months.
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Wolf, from what I read over the years I think it may have more to do with the overall state of your immune system (CD4s and VL) when you first started meds. The lower your CD4 and higher your VL, the higher the chance that you're going to be in trouble within months of stopping meds.
After all, women who go on meds solely due to pregnancy (their numbers did not otherwise indicate a real need for treatment) are often told they may discontinue the meds after the birth. Many of these women who discontinue treatment do very well for a few more years until their numbers drop and indicate a need for meds.
On the other hand, there was a study a few years ago that looked at STIs (structured treatment interruptions) that was stopped early due to too many adverse outcomes (ie plummeting CD4s and skyrocketing VL). However, I've always wondered if they were taking into account the person's stats before they started treatment when looking at the adverse advents. (for example, did the person having an adverse event start meds with CD4s over 500 and 10,000 VL, or did they start with 28 CD4s and 100,000 VL?) If I could remember the name of the study, I'd look it up.
i seem to have progressed rapidly when i was infected. i had tested negative about 5 to 6 months earlier and got sick and my VL was huge and my CD4's were tanking around 250. I always found this was odd to progress that quickly.
It's actually not odd at all. Your numbers were in line with what many people experience early on in primary infection (the first 3-6 months to as much as a year of infection).
Most people (not all) will experience an increase of CD4s and a lowering of VL once the body starts to deal with the virus and this can take up to a year. Many people experience it sooner, some people never see an improvement.
The only way to find out where you're going to fall in that spectrum is unfortunately, to wait and see. People who start meds immediately after diagnosis are never going to know, particularly people who start meds when they know they're not only newly diagnosed, but newly infected as well.
It sounds like you were diagnosed immediately following seroconversion ("i had tested negative about 5 to 6 months earlier and got sick") and again, your numbers were totally in line with a very new infection. The illness that some people experience during seroconversion are not due to the virus itself. They are due to the process the body goes through while producing antibodies.
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Based on my first diagnosis and studies I have found, I have been poistive for about seven years before then. Do my tests below follow the norms?
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Do my tests below follow the norms?
basically yes. You went onto meds and within a yr had reached UD and cd4 increased to put you above 200
but what wolfie is talking about is if you went off meds now, would having had low cd4s and high VL mean that within 7 months not 7 yrs, you would be back at an AIDS stage? What we need to know to answer his question is someone who never had high VL or low cd4s who went onto meds and at some point went off meds - how quickly would they progress to AIDS then? 7 yrs instead of 7 months??