Once you’ve made the decision to take medication, it is crucial to adhere to your prescribed regimen.
I’m prescribed Truvada and Isentress. I take one of each in the morning and one more Isentress in the evening. Honestly, it’s not bad to take three pills a day. Although, they are rather large pills! I’m fortunate in that I don’t notice any side effects.
My husband, on the hand, has some side effects from his one pill a day regimen of Atripla. The worst side effect for him is the dreams and they way it affects his sleep. He has VERY vivid dreams and falls into a deep sleep.
With being husband and wife and both positive, we tend to remind each other to take our medications. I have done a fantastic job at adherence with my morning pills, but not as well on my evening pill.
While I thought I had taken the pill each night, I would always end up with a few extra pills in the bottle at the end of the month. I know this must be from forgetting my evening pill. So to stay accountable, I bought a second weekly medication organizer. Now every Sunday, I fill the two organizers with my morning and evening pills. Problem solved!
It’s so important to adhere to your meds. You may need to experiment and find out what works best for you and your schedule! But you must find something that works for you!
I absolutely love your tattoo! Thank you for writing this blog about adherence. I have been pos for 27 years and am currently resistant to most of the medications out there becuase I did not adhere correctly to my medications. I am now on 4 different HIV pills and a few other meds. I take about 18 pills a day.
You are correct, it is very important to adhere to your medications!
I use my phone alarm to remind me to take the meds. It is set for the same time in the a.m. and p.m. and goes off every day. It's really helped me to remember my meds especially in the evenings. I'm on the same drugs and dosage as you are and have even gotten good at taking the drugs while going out to dinner with people who aren't aware of my status. Good luck to you!
I still have a strong memory regarding my time of taking my dosage. I keep one at home by my bedside and the extra in my bag. Right now am not using any organiser or alarm to remind me of my medication as I go by my "time sense" basis. I take my pill every 12 hourly. I may miss it by half an hr to one hour which itself is a minor thing but my adherence to medication is at least 98% with just two percent of failure.