On Apr 17, 7:20 pm, "Cactus Jammies"
<cactusjamm...@retinal.circus.orb> wrote:

I imagine it will be similar to how AIDS drugs came out.  At first
there was next to nothing, then when people started dying in high
enough numbers to get some wide scale attention and celebrity
spokespeeps then some of the sicker folks got new drugs earlier.  But
I can't forget to mention that a big part of that happening was the
hemophilia and homosexual communities making loud, persistent, demands
for it.  AIDS had to overcome the stigma of being a "gay plague" and
sadly, but helpfully, the hemophiliac community helped tremendously.
Hepatitis C does have some stigma as being a junkie disease, though of
the dozen or so folks I've known with it (including me) not a one has
used a recreational needle or snorted coke from a shared bill roll.
Maybe rotten events like those infected by the Nevada clinic will
bring some more attention we'll benefit from as a community.

Last time I was at my gastro he said the next fully tested and
approved therapy drug wont be out until 2012.  There are several
ongoing clinical trials going on here where I live (Cincinnati), but
to get into them I have to go the standard route of peg-inf/riba ,
fail, take the alternate route of pegacys (I know I got that one
wrong), fail, and then apply for admission to the study and see if
they are taking anyone at that time.  And the happy ending he told me
was that every patient he has sent and been accepted for the study
meds has quit them due to the extreme side effects.  His patients said
that Hep C symptoms we not bad enough to put up with the way the study
meds made them feel.

So ... whatever.  I may be starting my 48 weeks in the fall.  Haven't
decided yet.  I'm tired all the time, but the other symptoms are
mostly mild enough to ignore completely at this point.  The thing that
burns me is that I was told that sure, I could try and it would fail
(I can handle that), but that I could try, succeed, be cured or
whatever, and still never feel any better.  That blows.

The word is still filtering out to friends and acquaintances about my
being HCV+ and when they as me about it I say, "As far as serious
potentially fatal diseases go, it's kind of ok so far."  And it is.

cheers,
Frogger