Re: Zidovudine and Anemia: A patient's perspective

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Perhaps I should let a doctor answer this. I am a patient.

This is my personal experience. I had lived through 1800 mg of AZT a day when

that was the only medicine which crossed the blood brain barrier in1992, and the

virus had spread to the brain.

Nowadays, didanosine and efavirenz do the same task without much side effects.

Zidovudine inhibits production of blood cells from the bone marrow and they used

to regularly infuse me with plasma when I became anemic.

Recommended dosage for Zidovudine is 600mg a day and Combovir (epivir 150mg and

zidovudine 300 mg) also caused my RBC and WBC to be constantly below normal.

Among side effects it lists anemia and neutropenia, along with the usual nausea

and vomiting, and also myopathy.

There is no way you can prescribe AZT and not expect blood counts to drop.

Look up www.acria.org (AIDS Community Research Initiative of America)

Sincerely,

Priyadarshi Datta

e-mail: <thurpu@...>