TOPIC: Started treatment!

I got my generic Harvoni yesterday and took my first pill last night. It literally took 2 weeks from my online appointment to delivery to the USA. I had a hard time waking up and woke up very achy. I downed a bottle of water, coffee and a blended fruit smoothie. I feel great. Probably mainly due to knowing that I am finally going to get rid of this black cloud. My VL was 390,000 and I can't wait to see "UNDETECTED".
Any advice on what blood work I should ask my doctor to write for and when? I don't have insurance, but I found a very inexpensive lab in my area. Also, I make a smoothie every day. It contains dark fruits, leafy greens, Beyond Tangy Tangerine (vitamin/mineral powder), vegan protein powder, kefir and elderberry syrup. I was putting milk thistle in it, but was told to not take that on treatment. Are there any supplements that anyone found helpful? I also take 4 Life Transfer Factor (bovine colostrum/egg yolk extracts) daily. I don't want to take anything that will negatively impact my chance of success.

Congratulations Panthyra on starting your treatment, that's really great. Within a week of starting, most people will feel better than they have for years.

After starting treatment, little monitoring is required. The most important test is the viral load test : 'HCV RNA PCR (Quantitative)'. It's recommended to have it at 4 weeks into treatment (the virus should be undetected by then), then again at 12 weeks, and finally at 24 weeks (If you are undetected at 24, you're cured).

Your body does not typically need supplements. A normal diet consisting of a variety of foods is sufficient. While most supplements will be harmless, and will not interact with your medications, they have not been studied, so it's recommend you do not take them during treatment. If you insist, take them at the opposite end of the day to the time you take your medication.

Hi Panthyra,

Congratulations on starting your treatment. Mar has given you some good advice about tests and supplements. My understanding is that even though milk thistle may be beneficial to liver health it is not to be taken while you are on treatment with DAAs.

Just for interest there is a great link on this site in relation to drug interactions:

www.hep-druginteractions.org/checker

You will also find some interesting information if you type supplements into the search box.

Good luck over the next few weeks. You are clearly taking good care of yourself so drink lots of water, sleep well if you can and we look forward to hearing your results.

Coral

Hi Panthyra
Very exciting news congratulations on starting your Harvoni.
I took the 12 week course of Harvoni when these meds pretty much first became accessible here. Also had a very low VL, although I often read it’s irrelevant all is speculation imho. I cleared very very fast. My labs are amazing. I thought it might be useful to read my signature at the bottom of this page or my blog or parts of it anyway, it’s called Ariel Takes the Plunge. I mentioned assay ranges and so on, describing any side effects and also the happiness of being UND at last.
It will be such a momentous day when you get the UND on your labs and start to get awesome LFTs as well. The health that starts is instaneous I think it was for me despite the dehydration I experienced. That was just the nasty virus being nuked anyway in hindsight!
With getting labs, I had a poor range reading from a lab so I sourced another lab which had a much more update assay range and offered PCR RNA immediately as I came back with a < result at Day 25 but no Real quantifiable test. I quickly had that done and was UND as I suspected.
I hope this gives you a boost into this tx it’s marvellous to be on your journey to wellness and I will be waiting for your posts about the treatment and clearing the virus
Congratulations again
Happy Splashes
Ariel

Hope you are still doing great. I would like to here how you are doing. I am on day 4. I feel good today. I can't wait till I'm UND!!!

Hi Sunflower Wow great news to be on Day four, you are certainly in the right place here to access all the good stuff, I will be waiting to hear your results with you soon too and wish you the very best for the first bit of tx, that's pretty much the roughest bit I thought; if you could even say it was that hard! Drink heaps of water, keep active as possible.....all the information is here om this forum anyway, So a Big welcome form me and wishing you well, happy Splashes from Ariel