This brochure gives information on what to do if you have forgotten to take your HIV-medicines. It also tells you what to do if you have vomited after taking your HIV-medication.
Forgotten to take medication
If you realize that you have forgotten to take the medication, the following tells you what to do in this case. It depends on the type of medication you use, so read this information carefully!
If you are taking:
- Nevirapine (Viramune)
- Efavirenz (Stocrin)
- Tenofovir (Viread)
- Lamivudine (Epivir)
- Emtricitabine (Emtriva)
- Rilvipirine ( Edurant)
- Etravirine ( Intelence)
- Truvada
- Atripla
- Kivexa
- Eviplera
Take the forgotten medication immediately and continue with your usual medication schedule
- Other medication:
What you should do depends on when you find out that you have forgotten the dose.
More than 2 hours before you are due to take the next dose: Take the medication immediately and resume your usual schedule of medication.
Less than 2 hours before you are due to take the next dose: Take the medication immediately, but skip the next dose. After this you can resume your usual schedule of medication.
The recommendations given above should not give the impression that forgetting your medication is not really a problem. It is always better to try to find out what caused you to forget to take your medication, and how this can be prevented in future.
Negative consequences
You should be aware that if you take the medicine afterwards, this may temporarily result in higher blood levels, with certain side effects. However, this outweighs the risk of blood levels that are too low. Another negative consequence of forgetting your medication or taking it too late is that you may develop resistance to the medication. Resistance means that your medication will no longer be sufficiently effective against the HIV virus. In that case you will probably have to start using different medication. The disadvantage of this is that this medication may have more side effects, or may have to be taken more frequently during the day.
Daylight saving time
When setting the clock to Daylight Saving Time and back, just keep taking your medication at the usual time. You don’t have to take the one hour change into account.
Vomiting
Sometimes the medication must be taken without food, sometimes it has to be taken with food. Food in the stomach slows down gastric motor activity and therefore also the uptake of your medication. Therefore it is important for you to know when you have eaten and how soon after that you have taken your pills.
Medicines taken without food:
What to do in case of vomiting?
In the following situations:
- vomiting up to 1 hour after taking medication: take medication again.
- vomiting after more than 1 hour after taking medication: do not take your medication again.
- if vomit contains remnants of the medication: take medication again.
Medicines taken with food:
What to do in case of vomiting in this situation?
In the following situations:
- vomiting up to 3 hours after taking medication: take medication again.
- vomiting after more than 3 hours after taking medication: do not take anything.
- if vomit contains remnants of the medication: take medication again.
If you continue to vomit upon repeated use of the medication, the cause of the vomiting should be investigated. In that case you should contact your attendant physician or HIV nursing consultant. If necessary, you can get temporary medication against the vomiting.
Further information?
If you have any questions or if anything is unclear, you can always contact your nursing consultant at the AMC.
Questions
For questions, call the nursing consultant during telephone consultation hours. You can reach them Monday through Friday from 9.00am to 11.00am at telephone number 020-56 62407.
In case of acute complaints
For acute complaints from Monday through Friday from 8.30am to 5.00pm, call 020-56 69111 and ask for phone 29560.
Outside these hours and in the weekends, please call 020-56 69111 and ask to speak to the attending internist.