Stick to Your Treatment

HIV drugs can be hard to take. You may need to take a lot of them, and they can cause side effects that are hard to manage. But it’s so important that you take all of them as your doctor tells you to. Missing doses can lead to drug resistance. This is when the virus [...]

When to Start Treatment

Regular checkups will help your doctor monitor your health. Your checkups will likely include a physical exam and lab tests, such as a CD4 count, viral load test, and may also include a test to see if your HIV strain is resistant to any HIV drugs. This information will help your doctor recommend a time [...]

Anti-retroviral drugs

Anti-retroviral drugs inhibit the growth and replication of HIV at various stages of its life cycle. Seven classes of these drugs are available: Nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). NRTIs were the first anti-retroviral drugs to be developed. They inhibit the replication of an HIV enzyme called reverse transcriptase. They include zidovudine (Retrovir), lamivudine (Epivir), [...]