When to switch your drug combo.

The U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) guidelines currently recommend triple drug combinations as preferred treatments. Patients must adhere strictly to the treatment for it to be effective and to prevent resistance from developing. Patients who are unlikely to follow the regimen should not begin the treatment. Achieving prolonged viral load suppression requires an unprecedented level of compliance. For patients experiencing treatment failure, defined as when the treatment is having no positive impact on viral load, it is important to change all the drugs being used and to begin a whole new regimen at once.