STEP 7: Dealing With HIV Treatment

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:

Side effects
Pregnancy
Depression, drug addiction or other personal problems
Forgetting to refill your prescription
Illnesses or injuries
Family emergencies or travel
Getting tired of taking meds every day

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.

Keith Green "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."

Keith Green, age 30, diagnosed in 1994

To read more about Keith, click here.

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