David, welcome to the group. Some people seem to go through tx without
many problems while others have a great deal of problems, hopefully
you'll be one of the lucky ones. My first round of tx I went through tx
with few to no noticeable side effects. My second round was a little
rougher, but manageable. I hardly missed any work either time. If you
have questions this is a good place to come, but remember your doctor is
probably your best source of information. I say "probably" because there
are a few quacks out there, and combined there is a lot of practical
experience here in the group. Like with all families we do have our
disagreements here and you'll have to decide for yourself which opinions
you want to believe. Don't hesitate to ask questions, no matter how
minor or major, someone here will probably have an answer for you. Good
luck and once again, welcome to the group.

Dwight

Welcome to our little disfunctional corner of the world, David. Sorry you had
to seek us out, but glad you found us.

For your middle-of-the-night stuff, taking an extra-strength Tylenol an hour
before my Friday Night Shot would get me through 'til morning without too much
in the way of side effects. But I'll tell you now, for the first 40-odd weeks,
Friday was my "good day", when I could actually eat something substantial and
enjoy it.  The rest of the week was pretty much crapola, but I soldiered
through it, keeping an eye on the prize, so to speak (yes, therapy worked,
I've been undetectable for over a year now).

You'll likely go through various phases of side effects, but hopefully they'll
be relatively minor for you. There's the thinning of the hair thing, the
weight-loss thing, the skin rash thing, the "Riba Rage" thing, and then we get
into the real hard core stuff, crashed Neutrophils (WBCs), anemia to varying
degree,  etc, etc. All of those go away once you've recovered from therapy:
the hair comes back, the skin clears, the Rage mellows (and in fact you may
find you've re-examined your life's priorities after surviving therapy) and
the blood restores.

Resources? You could do a lot worse than to Google this group's posts for the
last couple of years and pick topics that interest you. Otherwise, there's a
ton of web sites that, together, provide a wealth of information. For a few:
www.hcvadvocate.org
www.medscape.com
www.hepatitis-central.com
www.medicinenet.com
www.hivandhepatitis.com
www.hcvinfo.com

And in particular, this file is about the best I've read on the subject:
http://www.californiahcvtaskforce.org/pdf/HCV%20Clinical%20Pathway%20S.F.Version4.PDF

It ought to be mandatory reading for patients *and* professionals alike.

Otherwise, the most productive thing you can do is ask every question you
have, either here or when you're at your doc's office, or both.

And speaking of questions: driven by my curiosity as a fellow g-1B, and
related to your g-type: are you in BC? I ask because 1B's that have been HCV+
for 30+ years seem more prevalent on the west coast of US/CA - and
particularly the Northwest corner of our continent. I'm just wondering if you
fit the same model.

Anyway...I am also a practicing Cynical Pessimist, so I totally understand
your mind-set. Heck, if I wake up in the morning, it's a great day :-) Even
though I had a profoundly good early viral response (I likely cleared within
the first four weeks), all the way to my 6 month post-therapy viral load check
I was convinced therapy had failed (for a variety of symptomatic reasons,
which turned out to be unrelated to anything to do with my liver).
I was - stunned - when the last post-tx VL check came back undetectable.

So, good things happen, but not without effort: you definitely want to make
sure your doc will make a best-effort to treat your side effects before
resorting to reducing your anti-viral meds. That may mean prescribing Procrit
or Epogen to boost your Hemoglobin/RBCs, or Neupogen to boost your
Neutrophils/WBCs. I was on Epogen for 36 weeks because of severe anemia, but
it allowed me to maintain the full dosage of anti-HCV meds for the full 48
weeks. I wouldn't have made it without the Epogen, I'm sure.

Cheers - and again, welcome to the group

/greyhackles

Greetings David,

Dwight and Greyhackles summed things up nicely. Not much to add but drink
more water than you think you possibly can...and take your vitamins! Folic
acid will help keep the blood counts up...to a point. So while you feel
good, do good for your body. Kill that dragon!

dort

Welcome to the group, David.  Hope your efforts get you the desired
results.  You're from Canada, eh?
elmo

http://community.webtv.net/elmoemerson/DocElmosHepFile

http://community.webtv.net/elmoemerson/TheFamilyAlbum

On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 23:44:54 GMT, David Michaels
<jumpinjive@yahoo.com>, in message ID
<0qaja2pqi7lnbelun71r2afbjhv2g9l9aj@4ax.com>, in the newsgroup
alt.support.hepatitis-c wrote:

Welcome to the group David.  Glad you found us but sorry you needed
to.  For me personally, the best thing for nausea (apart from throwing
up :-)    ) , was to sip water.
Another internet resource can be found at www.delphiforums.com  .
Plenty of hep-c forums there including live chatrooms and
comprehensive message boards.
As you have some varicose veins around the osophagus, it sounds like
you are probably right to treat this disease.  You make no mention of
a biopsy.  I assume you have had one if you have been with a hep doc
for 10 years?  If so, what did it reveal please?  Any cirrhosis?

Best of luck with the tx.  I was a half pinter (24 week tx) due to
genotype.  It worked for me.  Hope it works for you too.

Hi David,

Your case sounds very similar to my own. I've started treatment (again) and
am now in week 9. I'm not working at all this time but I think work could be
a good thing if it helps the time to pass a bit quicker. Depends what you do
at work and how you feel with the sides. I found it hard to do my job as it
requires a lot of thought and concentration. It's good that you can take a
day off when you need to but it may be hard to get your worst day to always
be a Friday. What day do you inject? I'd think about injecting Thursday
night, giving you Friday and the weekend to get over the worst of
it.(assuming you're on Peg Interferon 2b).

cheers and good luck
Jack