HIV Support Group

i tried taking meds in the morning but i was getting sick stomack ache nousia vomiting so my doctor said try them at night. so i did i found that it worked better so thats how i deal with my meds i take them onece aday at night and i'm had an undetctable viroload for three years now

All numbers on a page aside (t-cell, etc), if you're not physically sick, you are now that you started taking that drug.

Judge for yourself whether you are doing better or worse. You know your body best. What kind of a life is it to hallucinate (hear things, see things) and feel electricity pulsing through your body (also a known type of hallucination).

Nobody but your doctor is qualified to give you medical advice, but if I had a reaction to a drug like that, I'd flush it down the toilet. Wait, no, that'd probably harm fish. You might have to incinerate it.

I know that my brother started taking Atripla many months ago and he only had strange dreams for about a month and then they subsided...He has had no other side effects and his counts have improved and he is undetectable. I realize that this is not the same for everyone and everone's body is different and reacts differently to certain medications. he too, takes his medication at night which also helps decrease the side effects from the medication. Good luck to all who are brave enough to start their treatment towards living a healthier and happier life...~Doll~

I just started taking Atripla. It kept me up one night with stomach issues (cramping and diarrhea). I now know why they tell you to take it at night. It is nothing you want to be on while fully awake. Haven't thrown up on it and have only had diarrhea 2 times in the 2 weeks I have taken it.

Reactions vary. People handle things differently. My brother has two cats. If I look at one in a photograph, I get anaphylaxis.

Most everyone has some sort of "reaction" to the drug. It's usually gastrointestinal. I have. Mine just hasn't been to the point that it has been more than an annoyance and a life-threatening issue (i.e., diarrhea dn vomiting for 5 days in a row where you can't hold anything down). That's when you tell your doc to put you on something different.

The dreams. I don't mean to sound sick, but I actually enjoy this side-effect. My dreams are vivid and the individuals in my dreams are very interesting people. No one I've ever met, nor family members. I told my mom the other day, it's great, "I'm finally meeting new people!" Draw-back: they are so real-seeming that I have started wetting the bed (in relieveing myself in my dream, I end up doing it for real). The problem is, in the dream, it doesn't feel like a dream, but real life. THIS could be a problem if you are prone to nightmares, which I have never really been.

As with ANY medication, there are some side effects. Deciding what is managable and what isn't is up to you. I know what's on the other side (I have had PCP, Crypto, MAC). The side effects I'm experiencing on Atripla is, like I said, and annoyance. Just talk to your doctor. And do it immediately. Don't just stop taking the medication. That's when you will start developing drug-resistance. Good luck and if you want to know anything else about that, let me know. I have a lot of friends who are on Atripla or Sustiva (it's actually the Sustiva that causes alot of the side effects in Atripla).

Earl

I have been on ATRIPLA for about a wk or so now and noticed the tingly feelings and vivid dreams too, but for me they...knock on wood have subsided. Keep your head up! give it some time,try to eat healthy !

"Tell your doctor immediately if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., severe depression, thoughts of suicide, strange thoughts, angry behavior, hallucinations), vomiting, tingling/numbness of hands or feet."

I found this on the product insert for Atripla http://www.aidsdrugsonline.com/ind...

Pharmacist have a background of education which includes stuff about ARV's, I think your refering to Atripla's product insert as the couple pages they do have. I think its up to your doctor to do most of the informing about your medication regimen.

My experience was almost identical except that after 9 days I also got "the rash" and thus ended my A"trip"la experiment. Those "trippy" dreams were wild. I literally spoke with God for 9 nights in various context. Since I've never tried even Pot, this was over the top for me. Do yourself a favor, switch meds.

it's my opinion after a recent poisoning with a non hiv specific med (the clown gave me something for a minor post-nasal drip congestion and it messed me up BAD!!! HE outright LIED to me about the side effects... yeah, lied. he didnt fail to inform me, he outright LIED)....

... it is my opinion that nobody should be putting ANY medicine in their body, until they understand what the medicine does, how it works, and by 'how it works' i mean, how it operates on a cellular level, (get the dictionary out, and know what YOU're doing to your body by accepting it)...what it can do for better or worse, and what the worste-case scenario can be. im not saying be paranoid and frightened, quite the contrary, i'm saying be informed, empowered, and in control, gaurding against surprises, and moreso, as a matter of giving INFORMED consent.

doctors should INSIST that patients have an extremely comprehensive grasp of EXACTLY what a medicine is capable of. this is, afterall, the INFORMATION AGE... really doc, we can handle it...

nobody told me what protease inhibitors do to the large bones, until i ended up needing a hip replacement, AT 35! go learn what protease inhibitors can do to your marrow production, and what happens to the bone tissue when marrow production is supressed by something called AVN... and you dont have to be one in a million to have that problem!
nobody told me when they filled me with zerit, years ago, that it was well known to cause neuropathy and for many patients, it can compromise their ability to do simple things, LIKE WALK, THINK, REMEMBER, BALANCE, SLEEP, DIGEST FOOD, things we usually take for granted, and things we also dont always fully understand can be SERIOUS problems, even if such side effects 'seem' to be 'tolerable'... WHAT IS TOLERABLE TODAY, IS NOT NECESSARILY TOLERABLE ON A LONG TERM BASIS, so be sure to ask the difference between 'possible side effects that may go away during treatment' and 'subtle LONG TERM side effects, that appear to be tolerable, until they bite you in the ass a few years down the line. ask about potential PERMANENT IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE, even if it only happens to a tiny percentage... really, it will impress your doctor that you are even aware that such questions are valid and important to ask...

nobody told me that fuzion has a particularly nasty potential for serious respiratory disease, (which is rediculous with my lifelong history of respiratory problems, owing to the NON-HIV pneumonia i had as an infant, todler, pre-teen, teen, and in my 20's) they let me take this stuff without even telling me about all that? fortunately, i stopped taking all this stuff before it had a chance to swell the fluid sack that protects the lungs... so THAT's what that chest pain was all about...and i thought it was just 'side effects that go away during treatment'.... buyer beware.
nobody told me that sustiva has serious, highly disturbing psychoactive properties. my genotype test, (and nobody REALLY understands what that is, i can find a hundred people to give me two sentences about what it does, sound-bite explainations they read in a pamphlet, or some quote of a doctor's TWO-SENTENCE EXPLAINATION, but really, how many of us really know what a genotype test is, how effective is it really, and what are the potential problems with it? ARE there any problems, ARE they totally 100% accurate, DO they really mean anything substantial enough, can they really be relied upon? and by the way, what exactly do they measure, and how specifically do they do that. it's amazing we make so many decisions based on lab work we know so little about!
nobody told me what valtrex does to a person, (it's an antiviral, and can be very debilitating for some people)
nobody told me what bactrim really is, what it really does, and how terrible it can be. they constantly try to shove it down my throat, and in ten years time, ive been offered bactrim by at least five different doctors, (NONE OF WHOM CAN SEEM TO REMEMBER THAT IM DEATHLY ALLERGIC TO IT...although medicines youre allergic to are right there printed IN RED, on the front of your file, do they even CHECK before writing the scripts? do they check everytime? have you ever ASKED your doctor what his policy is about checking something like that. do you realise that 780,000 people die every year from medical mistakes just like that?

BOTTOM LINE:

if i dont know what a drug is designed to do, and specifically, scientifically, how it operates, and the complete list of negative side effects, and potential negative side effects, then it's not going into my body. if a doctor doesnt have the time to explain this to me, then he doesnt have the time to manage my life and death disease managment issues. if i myself dont know what the hell is going on, then im certainly not making decisions with INFORMED CONSENT... i may be giving consent, but informed consent is not consent, if youre not completely informed.

imagine being given treatment without informed consent, and yet most of us, do so regularly, routinely, all the time.

that's more scarey to me than illness itself.

I didn't think of it till you mentioned it, squEARL, but I believe it was after I started taking Sustiva that I suddenly was having dreams that involved people I didn't know. I haven't been on Sustiva for quite some time, but that hasn't gone away. I don't think I dreamed about strangers before I took that drug. I wonder if it has altered my thinking, opened a door, or if I'm just drawing conclusions where none exist.

Also, do you think the people you don't know in your dreams know the people I don't know in mine?

mschif:
A pretty sure sign of toxicity is that numb lips, gums and tongue. Did the inside of your lips feel kinda cold? If those things start happening, it's good to call a doctor, poison control or go to the emergency room.

With all of these component drugs out now, you've gotta watch to be certain that one doesn't contain something that caused a reaction earlier. On the other hand, the most frightening toxic experience I had with an HIV drug was with Retrovir, yet in the smaller amount of it in Combivir is tolerable. I had the beginnings of the allergic reaction but they did subside (as others mentioned here) with time.

Low body weight can affect dosing in some HIV drugs also, but your doctor should know that. Above all, when you find one that works, stay compliant!