I am on reyetaz, norvir, and tmruvada. I noticed fat in belly area, my breast, and face and arms. If I stay on these meds will I lose somewhat or will I always have to deal with this fat.I depressed over it What can I do

Hello and thanks for posting.

The likely culprit in this regimen is the Norvir and Reyataz combination. Boosted protease inhibitors are quite potent, but can associated with lipohypertrophy, or abnormal fat accumulation.

Switching off the protease inhibitors to a NNRTI-based regimen like Atripla will often lead to improvement of the fat buildup. If this not an option for you because of drug resistant virus, then changing to an integrase inhibitor-based regimen with Isentress may be an option.

For treatment, human growth hormone (Serostim) may be effective, but is not approved for this indication. Serostim is expensive and may worsen insulin resistance and lead to diabetes mellitus or pre-diabetes.

Logically, we prefer to switch off a medication that is causing side effects, rather than add another drug to treat the side effect. So switching off protease inhibitors would be the most direct approach for this problem.

Good luck!