Hi,
Anyone have experience with this medication ? It is used to treat hepb.
Br,
It is a commonly used HIV medication. The part of it that works against HBV is tenofovir (in the form of TDF, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate). The emtricitabine has no effect on HBV. It is sometimes prescribed for HBV+/HIV+ dual-infected people.
John.
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So if possible, it is better to find medicine with only Tenofovir and no other stuff like emtricitabine to lessen the side effects.
Hi @hepb1,
This is an interesting question with no clear answer. On the one hand, you may be right in terms of limiting the number of drugs you’re taking to only the one that is effective at treating yourself. I am not clear on what kind of side-effects that emtricitabine causes.
On the other hand, people without HIV/HBV infection take Truvada as part of HIV PrEP to prevent transmission. So, people who do not have Hep B take this and it has been discussed quite a bit (e.g., Risks and benefits of oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis for people with chronic hepatitis B - ScienceDirect).
Hope this provides some context and reason why we can’t provide any more information than this,
Thomas
I’ve been taking this drug for 6 weeks now. The problem is I started taking truvada Jst upon diagnosis and that was before finding out the viral load of which after the test a month ago, the viral load was <10 Iu/ml. Now I’m thinking I shouldn’t have started medication. Is it too late to stop taking looking at low viral load? Can I have a flare up? I don’t know if they are side effects of a drug or not but I’ve been having back aches and when I go to the hospital they tell me it’s a UTI which doesn’t not resolve after antibiotics.
Hi @esther,
There are chances that viral load and ALTs can flare up after stopping antivirals, so you should not stop without appropriate monitoring from a health professional.
Thomas