I was wondering, when you were put on treatment, did your doctor give you an option in treatment? Did you go over any concerns you had with treatment? Did he/she discuss all the possible side effects? Resistance and adherence?

when i first went on meds 10 years ago the options were a bit limited
i was put on certian meds without much of a say.
i'm in some hiv studies and i discontinued meds for about 4 years and they closely monitored the levels in my blood,when my cd4 sank past a certian point and my viral load rose above another level i was put back on meds.
my doc sat down with me and went over all the meds available and all thier side effects.
on the resistance part,i haven't had the problem of the meds not working so i haven't crossed that bridge yet and didn't have to worry about it.
on the adherence part, they did stress how important it is to take all the meds prescribed and gave tips as to when to take certian pills and ways to not to forget to take them. one of the biggest problems they said was someone will not take all thier meds and because of that the virus becomes resistant to the meds and the pills won't work.
one of the studies i was supposed to do was an adherence study but some signals got crossed and i was disqualified because i didn't get some tests they needed done in a certian window period , because they forgot to call me in.

Amazing.. What sort of ways did he suggest to improve adherence to your treatment? If you don't mind my asking.

it was mostly suggestions as to when to take the pills
what to eat when taking the pills,the time of day and ways to remind yourself to take them and also what to do if yopu forgot them.
i rarely miss taking mine so they wern't trying to improve me,
they were more like picking my brain.
they can tell pretty easy if your skipping doses by your blood test results.
they were asking me what i did
that worked so well for me.
to me it became a habbit
like brushing your teeth or takin a shower,just like another thing added into my daily routine.

So, it wasn't hard for you to adhere to treatment? Even from the beginning?

Also, were there any side effects from your treatment that were difficult or bothersome at first?

So, it wasn't hard for you to adhere to treatment? Even from the beginning?

Also, were there any side effects from your treatment that were difficult or bothersome at first?

i won't say it was easy,not at all.
i will compare it to sort of like quitting smoking in
its a mind over matter type thing.
i made up my mind i needed to do it no matter how bad it got.
my fear of what this virus could do to me made me do what i had to
so i could stay alive as long as i can.

some of the side effects are not very easy to deal with either :(
i had bad bouts of diarrhea at times
and alot of weakness, nausea and dizzyness.
i have even almost passed out in the extreme heat.
the new meds i have been on have been alot better to me then the meds i first took.
its sort of hard to predict how i will feel during a day.
i have bouts of nausea that come and go
with no rhyme or reason.
one moment i want to puke my guts up and i will feel dizzy and lightheaded then 10 mins later i will feel perfectly fine.
i gut out the bad the best i can,it might not happen or only happen once or twice a day so if i get past it the day goes pretty well for me.