I would really appreciate

I'm sorry you have a reason to be here but glad you found this group.  I was
dx'd in 2002 and it's been a wild ride ever since.  Like you, I've had it
since the '70s and a lot of things made sense once the diagnosis was made.
I dove headfirst into this ng and it was a life saver.  I was SO scared!

My liver's huge, and you're right, it can be painful.  First of all, make
sure your blood pressure is under control.  If mine goes up, it sometimes
causes sharp pains in my liver area.  As a matter of fact, I was dx'd with
high BP *because* of sharp pains in my side.  My BP was 180/120 then, but
since HCV wasn't much of an issue in 2000, the GP shrugged and said he
couldn't explain the pain in my side that had sent me to him.

Try to keep your diet as "liver friendly" as possible.  Lots of water, lots
of healthy stuff like veggies and rabbit food.  I keep the fat trimmed from
my diet and try to maintain 25 gm or less per day.  It really helps.
Everything that goes in your mouth goes through your liver, so it pays to be
careful.  Keep your weight at a reasonable level, and exercise.  If nothing
else, walk.

Good luck with your tx, and please keep everyone here informed.

Hello, Sojo. Welcome to our little dysfunctional group :-)

If there is anything up-beat to relate, you are fortunate to be G3. In the
vast majority of cases, this is "easier to treat" than G1 and G4, with the
standard-of-care treatment duration of "only" 24 weeks (compared to 48 weeks
for G1/G4) resulting in success rates in the high 80% range (compared to
success rates no better than 50% for G1/G4).

Because the success rate is so high, some clinicians skip the biopsy. I don't
necessarily agree with this approach, but I can understand it, particularly if
the patient demonstrates the willingness to take on the anti-viral treatment
regimen (conversely, if the patient needs some "prodding", a biopsy can be
very convincing, indeed ;-)

To maximize the odds, once you start treatment, be ever diligent in sticking
to your meds schedule. Don't skip shots, don't skip Riba. Also - and this is
important - take your Ribavirin with some kind of fatty food - it *greatly*
enhances uptake of this vital medicine. "Fatty food" can be anything from a
banana, peanut butter on a muffin or toast, eggs and bacon, etc. If you take
the time to read the Information Sheet provided with the Peg-IFN and Ribavirin
you'll find this note included somewhere in the fine print.

And avoid iron! It has become clear that dietary iron is rocket fuel for HCV.
If you take daily vitamins, check the label, and if they include iron, throw
them out and get vitamins that don't add iron. And if it hasn't already been
performed, you should ask for an iron load test the next time you see your
treating physician.

I'm a big believer in the "hands on" approach - I wanted to know as much as
possible wrt to how I was responding to treatment. If you want to follow that
lead, you should find out what your pre-therapy viral load is/was. Further,
you should try to get as frequent viral load testing as your clinician will
agree to. Ideally, testing at 4 weeks, 12 weeks, 24 weeks (End of Treatment
for you) with follow-up testing at 3 months post-EoTx).

You should also ask what the clinician uses for on-treatment blood-work
scheduling (CBC, LFTs, etc). At the beginning of treatment, at the minimum,
they should be testing two weeks into treatment, and again at four weeks, to
determine if anything is out of sorts (which could include incipient anemia -
the reduction of Red Blood Cells - or neutropenia - the reduction in the most
important of the White Blood Cells). If they test more frequently than that,
so much the better.

If you are prone to depression, you should at least discuss whether
anti-depressants are in order with the treating physician. For whatever
reason, Interferon can mess around with the ol' brain-pan, particularly in
folks that have been battling depression prior to initiating therapy. That
said, some folks sail through therapy without any psyche issues, so if you
don't have a prior history, there's a good chance you won't have any problems
of that nature. Just be aware of the potential as you go along - and don't
assume any problem that pops up is just in your head, it could be the drugs
doing the talking.

Finally, if you ever have a question, or just need someone to bounce a
question off of - or just need to rant a bit - drop us a line here. There are
plenty of good folks that will lend an ear, and there's a heck of a lot of
experience in the group. I'd be surprised if you could come up with anything
new ;-) and that's a good thing!

Cheers, and best of luck on your journey.

/greyhackles

Sojo
I am a G3a 2 time non responder and I agree with every thing Thip and
Greyhackles said except this bit. “If there is anything up-beat to relate,
you are fortunate to be G3. In the vast majority of cases, resulting in
success rates in the high 80%”. This is not quite true.

I tend to see G3s as the interesting Geno. At one and the same time we are
both easy to treat and yet can be quite difficult.

Below are the G3 SVR stats from the Accelerate trial which is the largest G2-
3 trial ever done.
G3 24 week arm had 369 patients.
Intent to Treat.....66%
Per Protocol ......71%

LVL <400000.….81%
LVL 400-<800K. 70%
HVL >800K........59%

F3-F4................49%
Steatosis...........55%

RVR..................85%
Non RVR...........39%

As can be seen LVL and RVR produce excellent results. Mediocre results of 49-
59% are obtained with the other negative predicts except non RVR which has
lousy results of 39%.
Now for the good news 60%-65% of G3s RVR.

Regardless of any other negative predict RVR produces excellent results,
although HVL and F3-F4 have higher relapse rates.

So us G3s are a bit of a mixed bag.
Make sure you get a 4 week PCR test done.
If you are not UND at 4 weeks, 48 weeks needs to be seriously considered.

All the Best with Tx
CS

I dont know where your going for treatment but sometimes cost is an
issue.
I was G1 and Kaiser would not have given me a  liver biopsy unless I
pushed for it, which
I did.

Also there is a fibrosure blood test that rates liver damage which you
might look into.