Day Eight - First Week of Protection

[T-Plus 8 Days.]

Eight days and eight pills in, and I think I'm starting to get myself on a routine - I've been using my app to track my adherence (it's actually kinda satisfying to be able to look back at see "100% Adherence" on my medication report), and so far I've managed to take my meds within about 30 minutes of the reminder I set (currently 7pm, or right around dinner time so that I have something in my stomach when I take my dose).

Truvada doesn't have to be taken with food - Gilead points out that "food does not affect how Truvada works" - but upset stomach is one of the most common side effects of the medication, and I have a sensitive stomach, so I'm all about taking precautions - remember, if you throw up a dose you just took, that dose is lost. If you caught some of my previous posts, I had a couple of rough mornings a couple of days in (this past Friday and Saturday) when the nausea was worst, but since then that's passed, and this morning I felt pretty normal (for whatever that's worth...).

So now the trick is gonna be keeping up this new routine; I'd like to be able to go into my first follow-up appointment having taken every one of my pills on time. This has a couple benefits for me: if nothing else, it means I've been as protected as I can be for the entire past month, but besides that it also tells me that my kidney function labs (which they'll draw at that first follow-up) will be as accurate as possible. It doesn't seem likely at this point that the Truvada has been hurting my kidney or liver function (I'm not experiencing jaundice, or any other sign of renal failure), but ya never know until you check.

Week one of meds went great - here's hoping the first week of protection goes at least as well.

Cheers, friends!