Photo: David McNew/Getty Images If I stopped taking the medication that suppresses my HIV, at first I’d feel fine. But over the next few months, my viral load would rise. In the first year or two, it might cause minor havoc (swollen glands, skin rashes). After a few years, it would become AIDS. Night sweats would likely drench my sheets. Wasting would make me look starved. Life-threatening infections, like PCP pneumonia, would become common. Within a decade of stopping meds, I might be dead.