HIV patients will have to rely on certain medicines as their primary treatment method. You can expect to get an anti-HIV “cocktail” from your doctor. This “cocktail” helps to keep HIV from multiplying too fast and maintaining the immune system’s health.
A few years ago, HIV patients would have to consume multiple dosage of HIV medicine to keep themselves healthy. But that is not the case anymore as technological advancement has set in and made it possible for the patients to keep it down to a minimum of one or two dosage per day.
The medicines being used to treat HIV patient is known as antiretrovirals. Some doctor will combine a few of these antiretrovirals to come up with highly active antiretroviral therapy, better known as HAART. This will help to reduce the risk of unwanted resistance against HIV medicines. This will usually happen to those who are treated with just one antiretroviral medicine.
Doctors will usually look for the following factors when they prescribe a patient for antiretroviral medicines. This includes:
The effectiveness of how the medicine is reducing viral load
Will it help the virus to grow stronger and develop resistance against certain medicines? Doctor will be able to find out if the patient have been previously treated with any antiretroviral medicine.
Will there be any side effects and are you able to cope with it?
Will it be too expensive for the patient?
The patient will also be treated with medicines that are essential to fight against illnesses normally occur among HIV patients as they have weaker immune system compared to a normal and healthy people. Some illnesses, such as pneumonia are among the usual sickness found among HIV patients. This happens because their CD4+ are damaged and couldn’t fight against infection anymore.
Therapy By Using Antiretroviral:
Some of the well-known antiretroviral includes:
Lamivudine, enofovir, emtricitabine and abacavir – these are good nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors
Nevirapine, efavirenz, or etravirine – Nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs)
Tipranavir, ritonavir, indinavir, nelfinavir, fosamprenavir, atazanavir, saquinavir, lopinavir/ritonavir – Protease inhibitors (PIs),
Enfuvirtide and maraviroc – Fusion and entry inhibitors
There are usually two reasons why the treatment is considered as failed.
The patient refuse to cooperate and do not take their medication as prescribed. So make sure you discuss with your doctor if you’re experiencing difficulty to take your medication as prescribed.
Another reason for the treatment is considered to fail is when the HIV virus became resistant toward the medication.
Doctor will find out the reason why the treatment is not effective if your CD4+ cell count is falling.