Roadmap to HIV Therapies

Switching or Stopping Medications

There are many things to consider before switching or stopping a therapy. Of course, your healthcare provider will be a great resource to tap, but there are others as well.

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In developing a long-term strategy for treating HIV disease and managing your health, it's a good idea to think ahead and be prepared. Fortunately, many people are making strategic decisions about therapy that look years into the future instead of days or weeks. To do this, it requires a person to think even more seriously about how the therapies they start today will affect the options available to them later.

Consider what you might do in terms of treatment if your first option doesn't work, causes too many side effects or for other reasons doesn't fit with your lifestyle. Again, being prepared and thinking about this before the need for a change arises gives you time to learn even more about your next choice and takes some of the anxiety away from facing a situation where you might need to consider switching to a new therapy regimen.

It is important to talk with your health care provider before deciding to stop or switch a medication.

Things to Consider Before Switching

Sometimes people facing serious side effects will switch drugs simply to improve their quality of life, even though they were controlling their HIV well. This is one way to deal with side effects.

Switching a drug solely because of side effects may also save that drug as a future treatment option. In fact, side effects that you have with a drug at one time may not occur again if or when you try that drug again. However, it’s dangerous to simply stop taking one drug in your regimen, reduce its dose without talking to your doctor or pharmacist, or only take it every now and then. This can lead to drug resistance, making that drug—and perhaps others—less useful for you now or in the future.

Things to Consider Before Stopping

For the same reasons that it's important to decide when to start therapy, it's also important to consider when or if it's ever appropriate for you to stop, for any length of time. How do you determine when the cost or potential risks associated with using a given therapy or approach aren't worth the potential benefits of staying on it?

In all of these areas you might come to decisions and agreements that change over time. Your expectations of a given therapy may change as you learn more about it and as new information becomes available. Changing your mind and re-thinking your strategies and approach is a healthy and normal part of a constantly evolving decision-making process.

For more information about switching or stopping medications talk with your health care provider or call Project Inform's HIV Health InfoLine at 866.448.4636.