I've written in a couple of threads that i got very sick with both acyclovir and valtrex.
@Pyrrhus Was not a startup effect with me because once I stayed on it for more than 3 weeks (might have even been 6 weeks) hoping to supress the damn virus. Nearly kiled me and the virus came back as soon as i was off. The symptoms got worse over time, not better.
There are some research reports finding it is very rare for strains of hsv anyway to become resistant to acylovir or valtrex regardless of what you do with dosage. I can try to find the reference
@Pyrrhus if it matters.
in my case, my symptoms were digestive. Seemed to eat through my esophagus. I got dysphagia plus reflux. Was unable to eat on it really. ried all manners of antacids , honey, all sorts of things to get it down. The night I threw up both the meds and gaviscon - not fun, so much burning - i had to finally stop. I also tried snorting it so that it would not go down digestive track assuming that was the problem - but got the same reaction! (always delayed by at least 24 hours- same was true for oral).
I thought, and independently an ID doc thought, that could mean the virus was in my digestive track since the antivirals go after cells infected with the virus. But since i also have a mast cell issue, who knows. My digestive system never normal after tha. Incidetnall, i tried 3 or 4 seperate times to resume, same effect each time.
By the same logic, I wonder if youve got brain effects if that suggest virus in those regions of brain responsible for emotional stuff.
I had also heard famvir was more well tolerated plus it tis a differenc lass thatn the other two. Acylovir is active ingredient and valacylcovir just a prodrug for it. Famvir different. I was very reluctant- famvir has a very strong smell compared to the others- my mast cells not found of that. I put some up my nose to snort and area got swollen. so didn't experiment much further.
There's not a lot of big pharma antivirals that docs are willing to prescribe for simple viruses, or to put it more accurately, not willing to prescribe others unless one has good evidence of specific serious viruses targeted by other antivirals other than these three. That's because the others are considered more toxic, and these 3 are considered benign. of course to folks like us, they are not benign at all and the supposed more toxic ones might be just fine.
Question: why did he think in your case recurrent viruses were to blame?