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Body Health Resources Foundation
STEP 7: Dealing With HIV TreatmentPart of HIV and Me: An African American's Guide to Living With HIV
April 2009 You've made the commitment to begin treatment and settled on your first HIV medication regimen. To ensure that your meds keep working, you'll need to take your doses on time, every time. But there may be challenges waiting to trip you up, including:
Whatever the reason, and however hard it may be to talk about it, it's extremely important to bring up the problem with your HIV specialist or case manager before the problem interferes with your med schedule. Take side effects, for instance. Keith Green's story is a perfect example of what not to do when side effects strike. Keith started HIV treatment at the age of 18, when his CD4 count was only 30. He got better, but the meds left him feeling drained and exhausted, so he stopped taking them -- without telling his doctor. "I believed that somehow God would spare me," Keith says, "until I got sick. Then I started to realize that this was serious and I had to do something or I was going to die." He talked to his doctor, who suggested a new treatment regimen with fewer side effects. Keith has been on HIV treatment ever since; his CD4 count is now a very healthy 646, and at the age of 30, he's back in college getting a degree in social work.
Copyright © 2006 - 2009 Body Health Resources Foundation. All rights reserved. This article was provided by Body Health Resources Foundation. It is a part of the publication HIV and Me: An African American's Guide to Living With HIV. |
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"My life right now is very good, and I'm not sure I would be able to say that had HIV not entered into it, because it really made me explore who I am, why I'm here, and find purpose."
