Dr. Dejesus: Each night I take my Atripla at 8:00 PM. However, sometimes at 7:00 I want to go ahead and take it to get it out of the way, or go out without having to think about it. Sometimes, I arrive home late from Work related Meetings at 9:30 and immedeatly take my Atripla. I have never missed a dose! How much leeway do I have in time taken with atripla. Thank you.

First, I want to congratulate you for your excellent adherence. Taking your medication daily without missing is the key of success for your treatment to continue to work perhaps indefinitively.

Atripla is a coformulation of 3 anti-HIV medications: Sustiva, Viread and Emtriva. All these 3 agents have been found to have very long half lives; which mean that after each dose is taken daily, the drug levels on your body remain adequate for longer than a day. So it would be extremely unlikely that taking the medication off time (a few hours earlier or later) or even a seldom dose missed, will have any significant impact on your viral response, once your viral load have achieved an undetectable level. Despite this, we still highly recommend that you not to take any chances and avoid missing any dose.

You are going to be fine.