lloydwright is a scam artist. He is in the business of selling useless supplements. His videos, blog etc are filled with half truths, exaggerations and outright lies. I hate that SOB. He is preying on ignorant and desperate people. All medications have side effects. They have to list all of them. Some maybe severe but maybe less then 1% of the tens of millions that take it will get that side effect but they have to tell you about it.

Most people who complain about severe side effects have taking the medication for 6 months versus the standard 3 months of dosing. Especially with the complaint to the eye issues.
Believe me I am not dismissing your concerns. Just watch where you get your information from. I hate seeing people taking advantage of.
You tend to hear only of the handful of people who had severe side effects. The millions who do treatment with very minimal side effects just go back to there daily lives. You’ll always hear from the people who are not feeling well.
I would weigh the risk and rewards of using the medication. If your liver is very damaged as the fibroscore says I would risk it all to get rid of the virus.

Welcome countless,

As Tommy points out Frank Lloyd is in the business of selling supplements. He appears to do so by attempting to instil FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt) about pharmaceutical medicines in his customers. The Canadian Sovaldi monograph that Marcee quotes in your link does include some vision issues but it is an old monograph from when all the clinical trials used Sovaldi in combination with ribavirin and/or interferon, both of which were known to cause vision problems. So much so that when I participated in a clinical trial using those two (but not Sovaldi) in 2013 I was required to have a full eye checkup for any problems prior to commencing the trial. As with any drugs we take these newer DAAs may have some side effects but so does living with HCV. My experience has been that the reduction in my complications of HCV has greatly outweighed the side effects of the medication.

As far as relapses go, like sabrecat I am one of those but was always considered a difficult to treat patient due to genotype, prior treatment and extent of cirrhosis. I am currently planning my next treatment.
But the overall figures for success both on this site and elsewhere are in line with expectations at greater than 90% overall although slightly less than the initial clinical trials indicated. Here is the latest data https://fixhepc.com/forum/experts-corner/1316-harvoni-delivers-only-91-92-svr12-in-va-study-n-4365.html#21770
The thing is, most people move on and start living a life free of hep C and forums once they achieve SVR so those of us who need to retreat can seem to be a greater percentage than we really are.

Hi again Countless,

Just thought I’d add, that I was on treatment for 26.5 weeks in total and didn’t have any eye issues. I’m a very small build too and took 3 medicines for the last 4 weeks, I was prone to tiredness and would nearly pass-out when I needed to sleep, but nothing more. Amazing really I had insomnia pre treatment, so this was also a bonus, In fact, I was nervous about stopping the medicines if anything! I used to get ‘ eye ache’ pre treatment and that has now completely gone.

My Doc told me inflammation can cause alot of issues, when you start taking the medicines they reduce inflammation within a few weeks and so many feel much better quite soon into the treatment because of this.

I was warned that the first week, I may feel midly fluish and was nervous about that, but it never came. I did get a chest infection mid treatment, but I have always been prone to these and we were mid winter in the UK and many people without the virus had chest infections and flu around here.

I found the first month I improved so much and got a spring in my step (previously suffered joint pain) , then as I say a chest infection, antobiotics cleared this up, then the rest if my treatment a gradual improvement, especially noticable was my improvement in mood and I slowly started to engage in life again after being totally withdrawn from life for the last few years.

My feeling is, any side effects are much less severe than having the virus attacking your system all round, untreated things could and most likely will, get worse.

I am so grateful to the good people here, I am waiting on my 12 weeks post tx results, even if I were to relapse, I am SO much better than those dark days pre treatment and my liver function is all within range and fibrosis has gone from 8.7 pre treatment to 4.7 – 5.7 at end of treatment, there’s no doubt I am also a much happier person all round too.

I hope this info gives you the short version of how the treatment has been for me, there is much reading in patient experience here, and can take some time to get through

Best wishes, LG

Mr Wright is 100% in business to sell supplements. Please understand since theDAA’s came onto the scene Mr Wright had to move from Malibu to Arizona, 2-3 years ago, as the downfall in business hurt his company. This is due to HVC medications hitting him hard and at 60 something years old he faced big dangers of losing his standard of life and too old to make a comeback to previous standards of living.
Mr Wright was a pioneer in HCV but it turned from a happy story of helping people to a business story of making money. I feel very sorry for Mr Wright in a way. His legacy could have continued forward telling and writing books about his way to eradicate this ugly disease and he just got caught up in his own hype and took it to a business which IMO, was his downfall. He could have made just as much by writing and telling his story, again IMO.
I hope he can “wright” the ship and stick to other areas of supplements or by selling supplements to enhance the liver and it miraculous rebuilding process unlike any other organ in our body.

Moral: you cannot mix business with a moral duty to protect and serve the people whom you’ve intended to help. That leads to an agenda mixed with money, which most always ends up on the wrong end of you goal.

In good health to you.

There are very few side-effects to the DAAs and the mild ones that some people get are short-lived. Success rates, as Dr F points out elsewhere on this forum, are around 95% in both clinical trials and real world treatment. This is most unusual in science – clinical trials nearly always have higher success rates than real world treatments for a range of reasons. This says to me that DAAs work. Period.

Why have you had to stop your job? Isn’t there employment law that protects you against this discrimination. I’ve heard of surgeons with HCV continuing to work. As long as your employers know, your occupational health team know and you take precautions (i.e. wearing surgical gloves) the chances of you getting cut and blood making contact with the patient’s blood are tiny. And, beyond that, surely there are other non-patient contact roles you could fill in the meantime.