The role of the drugs is to prevent further viral replication and to fight a continuous war with the virus. You may not feel that the drugs are doing much, especially if you experience difficult side effects. However, if your viral load is substantially decreasing while your CD4 cells are steadily increasing, that is a good sign that the drugs are indeed working. I'm worried the drugs are toxic. Many people think that side effects and toxicities are the same thing, when in fact, they are not.
Toxicities are much less frequent than side effects.
A toxicity is serious and has long-term consequences. However, a side effect is short-term and goes away when the drug is stopped. There may also be interactions of AZT with methadone, which increases AZT levels. Antiretroviral drugs has also been shown to alter methadone metabolism and increase methadone levels. It is recommended that you eat as much as possible during and after usage to replace the body's energy resources, drink lots of fluids and get lots of sleep.