Mitchell Luna takes three pills every morning to protect his cells from the HIV he contracted a decade ago.
There's Epivir, which prevents the virus from turning into DNA and replicating. Isentress just protects healthy DNA, preventing its infiltration by the rogue genes. And Reyataz blocks a substance called protease, which renders any HIV proteins that are produced useless.
Each drug belongs to a class, and each class has an acronym. They are, in order, NRTIs, PIs and IIs - nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors and integrase inhibitors.
Luna, who adopted a pseudonym for this article, also suffers from HIV-related neuropathy that he treats with the painkillers Cymbalta, Percocet and morphine. Muscle relaxants dull the back pain caused by degenerative disc disease. Every evening at dinnertime he repeats his anti-HIV regimen and follows it with an occasional Lunesta for insomnia.
It's a daunting pharmacological diet. But it's not enough.
"There are some days I'm in so much pain that smoking weed is the only thing that gets me out of bed," Luna said.
There's Epivir, which prevents the virus from turning into DNA and replicating. Isentress just protects healthy DNA, preventing its infiltration by the rogue genes. And Reyataz blocks a substance called protease, which renders any HIV proteins that are produced useless.
Each drug belongs to a class, and each class has an acronym. They are, in order, NRTIs, PIs and IIs - nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors and integrase inhibitors.
Luna, who adopted a pseudonym for this article, also suffers from HIV-related neuropathy that he treats with the painkillers Cymbalta, Percocet and morphine. Muscle relaxants dull the back pain caused by degenerative disc disease. Every evening at dinnertime he repeats his anti-HIV regimen and follows it with an occasional Lunesta for insomnia.
It's a daunting pharmacological diet. But it's not enough.
"There are some days I'm in so much pain that smoking weed is the only thing that gets me out of bed," Luna said.
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