I got my first breakout & diagnosis in Feb 2023. Around 8 months ago. The first 4.5 months, I was getting a breakout monthly (around the time of my period) and sometimes bi-monthly if I was extremely stressed and/or sick. In all those breakouts, I would take my antivirals to either try and prevent (when feeling prodomal symptoms) or shorten the duration of said breakout.

One day I read something on reddit about someone stopping antivirals to let their body fight the virus naturally - I decided to try it out. The next time I got a breakout, albeit lasting a little longer, I skipped the antivirals.

And then all of a sudden…no breakout. For three months.

But now, I recently got a breakout last week (which was more painful than usual) and another one this week.

So i’m wondering, is my hypothesis correct that stopping antivirals helped make breakouts less frequent? Or could this just be a spurious association…a coincidence entirely?

Has anyone done this?