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Medical Video: I STOPPED TAKING MY HIV MEDICINE (This is what happened)
Standard antiretroviral therapy (ART) consists of a combination of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to maximize suppression of the HIV virus and stop the progression of HIV disease. Doctors recommend ART for all HIV sufferers as soon as possible after diagnosis, regardless of CD4 count.
ART is not a cure, but these HIV drugs prevent HIV from multiplying, so these antiviral drugs reduce the amount of HIV in your body. As a result, ART reduces viral load and significantly lowers the rate of HIV transmission, so you can lead a longer and healthier life, while reducing the risk of transmitting HIV to others. In addition, ART also reduces the rate of opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, or some types of cancer.
Actually, having less HIV in the body can make your immune system recover and fight infections and cancer. Although there is still a certain amount of HIV in the body, the body's immune system is strong enough to fight infection and cancer. By reducing the amount of HIV in the body, HIV drugs also reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to other people. In addition, ART not only saves an individual's life but also actually reduces the community's collective viral load, significantly reducing the rate of HIV transmission.
ART is recommended for all people with HIV, regardless of how long they have had the virus or how healthy they are. If left untreated, HIV will attack the immune system and eventually develop AIDS.
The main types of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV include:
- Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) such as zidovudine (Retrovir), abacavir (Ziagen), and emtricitabine (Emtriva), which blocks one of the enzymes that HIV needs to replicate in cells.
- Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) such as efavirenz (Sustiva), etravirine (Intelence), and nevirapine (Viramune), which target the same enzymes as NRTIs, but with different chemical structures.
- Protease inhibitors (PIs) such as atazanavir (Reyataz), ritonavir (Norvir), and tipranavir (Aptivus), which stops the production of one component of HIV.
- Entry inhibitors, which blocks the entry of HIV into CD4 cells. This type of drug includes 2 small divisions: the first is the CCR5 antagonist (also called entry inhibitors), such as maraviroc (Selzentry) which blocks CCR5, a protein receptor on the surface of CD4 cells (immune system cells) that are bound by a virus to enter the cell. The second is fusion inhibitors, such as enfuvirtide (Fuzeon) which also blocks the ability of HIV to enter CD4 cells.
- Integrase inhibitors such as dolutegravir (Tivicay), elvitegravir (Vitekta), and raltegravir (Isentress), which blocks HIV from inserting viral DNA into host cells.
ARVs reduce viral load, the number of viruses in the bloodstream. People who have an undetectable viral load can stay healthy for longer. In addition, their chances of transmitting HIV infection to others are smaller.
