HIV Disease and AIDS
Managing HIV Disease: Getting the Most from Your Therapy
Understanding Combination Therapy and Drug Resistance
Questions & Answers
"Can one anti-HIV drug, taken alone, be enough?"
Sometimes, only one or two drugs may be prescribed. But in order for treatment goals to be met, it usually takes a combination of three anti-HIV medications -- from two or more of the drug groups described earlier. Whatever your doctor prescribes, however, taking your medication(s) exactly as instructed is the only way to make sure you benefit fully.
"Why are HIV-fighting drugs used in combination and not just one at a time?"
HIV must go through several steps before it can spread. If any one of these steps is stopped, the virus cannot duplicate itself. Different drugs attack the virus at different stages of development. A combination of drugs, therefore, helps ensure that most HIV-infected cells are destroyed, regardless of the stage they may be at.
"What is drug resistance and how is it connected to combination therapy?"
When a drug that once worked well against the HIV in your body starts to become less effective, the term used is drug resistance. Combination therapy attacks the virus on several fronts at once, thus delaying or preventing possible resistance.
How drug resistance happens
To better understand how this happens, imagine a machine that makes donuts...
- For every 10 donuts the machine turns out, one odd-shaped donut is produced. For every 100 donuts, 10 are oddballs!
- The more donuts made, the more oddballs appear.
- HIV produces oddball viruses, called mutations, at random. Virus copies that contain these mutations are different and may not be affected by the medications.
|
By always taking all your medications as prescribed, you help stop the virus from making copies of itself. That means fewer mutations are produced, so resistance is less likely. This may help keep your medication working for you longer. |
 |
