Dang, I never even thought about kidney disease. I have a weird thing that’s been going on for a lot of years and I don’t know what causes it. I swell up, not my face or anything but my feet and my hands swell up. My doctor blames the HepC which may be true but Ive never met anyone else with HepC who swells the way I do. Any ideas Doc James. BTW, since i been on Harvoni I haven’t been swelling up. I know it probably sounds funny but it’s not at all. I’ve been given Lasix and another diuretic but I don’t take them things unless it gets painful. Anyone??

Holy frijoles! That’s something beahaven! What … I’m not sure. But good for you!

Matt

In addition to the edit I made to my previous post I’d like to add that I stopped taking lithium 3 months ago. I’d been taking it for 16 years and didn’t think anything about it despite my growing aches and inflammation. When I considered generic HCV meds, I took charge of my heath care meds for the first time. I told my doctor that I wanted to change my HIV meds and over strong objections I told 2 doctors that I was stopping the lithium with or without their help. Now once I finish with my generic Harvoni I will only be taking one pill, Triumeq (a combo of my 3 HIV meds). It has been a process and the generic Harvoni is the cornerstone of it all.

I was a middle of the pack marathoner in the 1990’s (PR 3:45), then shifted to triathlons for balance in the early 2000’s. One of the cool things for tri geeks to do is get a complete stress test with assessment of performance related data (e.g., functional threshold power) that the tri geek can obsessively monitor. I went to the local physical therapist who offered this service, and who also had an MD on staff.

The most instructive element of the visit was the MD wagging his finger at me, saying “you are borderline, and need to watch it”. He was talking about high blood pressure, of which at the time I was completely ignorant.

Although I (i) am essentially a vegan, and deliberately include all the BP friendly foods, (ii) meditate daily with a Resperate device, (iii) do not abuse alcohol, and (iv) appear to others to be the fittest 59 year old they know, my BP remains sky-high. It will drop to normal levels after a long (3-4 hour) workout, but, of course, this is merely correlative to the fact that my heart rate has averaged 80% of max heart rate for the 3-4 hours. My BP returns to the stratosphere after my heart rate returns to resting level.

There is no other explanation for my high blood pressure than portal hypertension caused by fibrosis around the portal vein. This is the HCV complication that will kill me unless it is addressed. With this self-diagnosis, my game plan is to (i) have my NP arrange for a fibroscan when I go in at week 6 for a VL test, and (ii) shift focus to fibrosis reversal.

Questions for the community:

1. Will a fibroscan identify the concentration around the portal vein, either confirming or discounting the portal hypertension self-diagnosis?
2. In addition to elimination of the HCV, what supplementation (e.g. Phosphatidylcholine?) is helpful for a fibrosis reversal strategy?

Thanks for the advice and counsel!