I've been on Viread, Kaletra, Zerit and VidexEC for about 5 months. During the past month I've been occasionally getting the odd muscle cramp; one day my calf muscle, another day a bicep, then a foot cramp. I mentioned this to my doctor who checked my most recent blood tests and said my calcium and phosphorus levels were fine but would run a lactate test. Can high lactate levels be a side effect of HIV drugs? or HIV itself? I know that lactic acidosis is a potential side effect to some HIV meds. How does this relate to lactate levels? If the lactate levels are too high, what can be done besides stopping the meds?

The venous lactic acid level can be increased by exercise and also impacted by improper collection of the sample. If a person is developing lactic acidosis the lactic acid level is consistently elevated and symptoms often appear (most often fatigue and GI complaints). Stopping meds for a while or switching meds (if early) usually helps. D4T is most often associated with lactic acidosis but it has been seen with most of the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. There is no other intervention that can be endorsed at this time. KH