Hi Sven,

Ferritin is an acute phase protein so it rises with, for example, any infection.

It is also high in many chronic diseases.

By itself, it is difficult to interpret. You need to consider it together with the FBC (CBC) and full iron studies.

For iron overload, the treatment is venesection (bleeding). Simple, quick, effective and DRUG FREE!

Hello Are215,

As far as I know you are the first!

What did it say?

Can you send it through privately so I can have a look?

Did it have a title? This is important because:

https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/GuidanceComplianceEnforcement/ComplianceEnforcement/ucm042132.htm

Depending on the nature of the violation, it is the FDA’s practice to give individuals and firms an opportunity to take voluntary and prompt corrective action before it initiates an enforcement action.
Advisory action letters include Untitled and Warning Letters. Warning Letters are issued to achieve voluntary compliance and to establish prior notice. Warning Letters are issued for violations of regulatory significance that may lead to enforcement action if not promptly and adequately corrected. A Warning Letter is the agency’s principal means of achieving prompt voluntary compliance with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act). Warning Letters are posted on FDA’s website.

The Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is posting Untitled Letters on its website to keep the public informed about persons or firms violating the law. We expect that posting these letters will deter other similar violations.

Anyway, if you got your medications from us, and in the event anything further happens I will personally fund your legal defence.

Hi Kieth,

We certainly see neurological changes with Hep C infection and (usually) these get better with treatment.

Changes in taste, changes in sensation and changes in tinnitus are all seen, as well as the clearing of the brain fog in patients who take treatment. Mostly these changes are rated as improvements.

Riba is pretty toxic and takes a good 2 months to get mostly out of your system.

At the moment wait and see is about it. Some patients swear by B vitamins so taking a supplement would at worst be harmless and may help.

It will probably settle with the passage of a bit of time, and the clearance of the Ribavirin from your system.

Here it is as an image

Hello saban,

The negative result is good and enzymes look good.

For now just keep taking the medication and have faith they will do the job for which they were designed.

At the end of the tablets we get to the nervous wait for 12 weeks to see that virus does not return.

For 95% of patients the virus does not return and they are cured.

For the other 5% it does, but we can always retreat with stronger drugs.

Hello Saban,

If you post your results here I can comment on them. Having the before and current results is good.

Bilirubin tends not to change greatly, but your Anti-HCV is the Hep C antibody. That will be positive for years (it just marks exposure to infection). The HCV PCR RNA Viral load is the test that checks for the presence of the virus.

Hello SonjaTheGF,

The BF is a lucky man to have a supportive GF!

Best wishes to you both.

Hello Bern,

So it sounds like your PCT is being managed. Here is a good overview of it just in case anything is not being done:

https://www.dermnetnz.org/topics/porphyria-cutanea-tarda/

PCT is not something associated with Hep C so we would not expect treating the HCV to change it.

There are over 1 million patients in Egypt with GT4 treated with Sof/Dac so more is actually known about it than any other genotype. Most of this knowledge is in Arabic but in talking to them their observations are the same as mine.

For asymptomatic HCV patients (and these are very few) there is nothing to improve.

For patients who just think they are asymptomatic (ie relatively low fibrosis) there are good and unexpected improvements.

For patients with significant fibrosis, or other things that have damaged the liver, the improvements after treatment are real, but less, and the recovery is slower.

The fact that your liver enzymes are still elevated indicates either some damage that can’t be undone, or an ongoing process like the haemochromatosis.

With chronic pain and narcotics, we observe that they stop working over time unless you escalate the dose. After a year you will be getting about zero pain relief from them and will simply need them to feel normal. It would be worth looking at weaning the codeine for a start (this just gets variably converted to morphine) and won’t do much in the context of Targin.

There is a phenomenon called hyperalgesia where we see long term narcotics down regulate your body’s natural endorphin production meaning you feel more pain than usual for any given pain.

Assuming your pain is low back related the best solution is exercises.

https://www.google.com.au/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&q=low+back+pain+exercises

You will notice here that the osteopaths, physiotherapists, orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons all say similar things.

Non narcotic pain relief includes non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, paracetamol (acetominiphen), tri-cyclic antidepressants, gabapentin, pregablin, TENS and heat.