Charlie Sheen’s latest interview is sparking plenty of attention after the actor revealed that he has stopped taking his traditional HIV medication in favor of alternative therapies in Mexico.
Speaking on The Dr. Oz Show on Tuesday, which was the second installment of a two-part interview, Sheen admitted that he has stopped taking his medications for the last week. He also ditched his long-time physician in favor of Dr. Sam Chachoua, a physician who is not licensed to practice medicine anywhere in the United States. Dr. Chachoua said that he is working on an HIV vaccine and insisted that Sheen is “the first person in history without antiviral therapy” to be cured of HIV. To prove his point, he said that he even took some of Sheen’s blood and injected himself with it.
However, the decision is already baring negative consequences for Sheen’s health. He told Dr. Oz early in the interview that he was “a little off my game” because he learned before going on stage that his “numbers are back up,” referring to his T-cell count. Sheen also said he now has detectable traces of HIV in his blood, a stark difference from his initial HIV announcement in November where he said he was undetectable. Sheen’s former physician, Dr. Robert Huizenga, urged Sheen to go back to resuming his normal treatments.
“It would just break my heart if we were to risk returning to that horrible part of our history,” sad Huizenga, referencing the deaths that occurred from AIDS in the ’80s. The interview concluded with Sheen telling Dr. Oz that he would resume taking his HIV medication on the plane ride back home.
In the first part of the interview, Sheen said he was sober for 11 years, but relapsed four years ago after first learning of his HIV diagnosis. He admitted to using drugs and alcohol “to suffocate the anxiety and what my life was going to become with this condition and getting so numb that I didn’t think about it,” but said he has been clean and sober for the last few months.