Instead of a graph showing peaks and troughs, we d have a flat line. This will never happen if we swallow pills, because we get a large amount of drug with each dose. These methods of taking medication are more expensive and complicated than taking pills. Because they break the skin, there is a risk of infection. There is another way, however, to smooth out drug levels in the blood.
Blood levels drop when the drug is metabolized by the liver and removed from the body.
If we slow down this process, less drug is removed from the blood. The concentrations stay higher and the drug s half-life gets extended. The trough levels are not much higher than the levels needed to stop the virus. But if indinavir is combined with a small amount of ritonavir, the trough levels of indinavir stay much higher, and you can take it just twice a day, with food. Ritonavir has a similar effect when it s combined with other protease inhibitors.