After what I have seen working in hospitals, I'd sure pick a
lot of other things to die from than HCV.  I don't mind the idea of dying.
I just think HCV is a  rough way to go.  Most of us with HCV will die of
something else.

It happens though.  There are people dying with this, and some folkes don't
even know they have it until too late to do anything about it.  True, they
must have ignored a lot of symptoms for a bunch of years.  There are a lot
of people that just don't go to doctors no matter how bad they feel.
There are whole areas of the world where medical care just isn't a
possibility for the poor.  I believe that I read some time back that HCV
actually kills more people than AIDS.
Am I wrong?

Susie

It is not the HepC that kills you, it is the cirrhosis that scars your
liver beyond repair. I probably got HepC in the 60's or 70's.
Ignorance was bliss during those days, some days I didn't feel so
great but attributed it to what I ate or mild case of cold/flu. I
thought I was in perfect health, vas a veggie, jogged or swam daily,
etc. (In '78 I had had a religious conversion and never touched any
illegal subastance again, and never dreank again). Then in '97 ended
up in the E.R. for a kidney stone (unrelated), and they did an
abdominal ultrasound and platelet count and found I had an enlarged
spleen and was anemic. I was referred to an Internal Med. Dr. who did
more tests. Found out I had HepC. In '97 the only famous person to
have it was Naomi Judd, and she seemed to be doing OK, so I wasn't
worried. Until I went to a Hepatologist, who did more testing, liver
biopsy, etc, and told me about the dreaded 'C' word cirrhosis which I
always thought and many people still do meant a gutter alcoholic, in a
stupor, panhandling spare change for some cheap wine. But she told me
that cirhossis just means severe liver scarring, caused by alcohol,
HepC, and other things. In any case I was scarred severely, not a
candidate or Interferon, and my only options were transplant or slow
agonizing death. Luckily I am set for transplant at UCSF on 7/9/04
with my bro-in-law as a living donor

Most of you guys are lucky, 60-70% of you will just carry the virus,
experince some occasional fatigue/nausea, but ende up living full
productive lives in which you end up dying of something else. But for
that to happen:
1. Stay on top of it.
2. Do the Interfernon thing.
3. NO drinking at ALL. Booze causes the virus to become more
aggresive.
$. Keep you health in top shape.
5. Take Milk Thistle regularly, all evidence of it helping is purely
anecdotal but I think it has slowed the progress of disease in my body
(You can eat a bunch of milk Thistle pills, then eat a deadly
Toadstool mushroom and it won't hurt your liver, that says something
about it)

This is from someone who has struggled with liver disease daily for 7
years, so I know what I am talking about. I know Interferon/Ribo is
tough, but liver disease is much tougher.

I thought you cleared the virus?
What happened??
hoof

Smiling Wickedly,  heppiechik answered:

I hope I'm so lucky..

Michael