Hi Chong, Hazel has provided some good advice. The following link will provide further information to his doctor about what is required to prescribe and monitor treatment https://fixhepc.com/forum/forum-gp-cheat-sheet.html
If his doctor is not supportive then he could arrange a Skype or similar consultation via a telehealth provider such as https://gp2u.com.au/new_to_gp2u.html or https://www.monkmed.com/redemption/
To ask specific questions about your boyfriend’s situation you or he can email help@fixhepc.com or phone (international code) 613 8672 7825 (There may be slight delays in response at the moment due to the holiday season)

I’m not an expert but as your nurse says, there isn’t a huge amount of data on extending GT3 treatment naive with F0/1. I suspect 16 weeks gives you a really good chance of beating this virus and that extending further would be really getting into the area of diminishing returns though it may possibly give you a percent or two if you haven’t already cleared.

Your liver ‘twinges’ are something that have been commented on by others including myself. They seem to occur both during and post treatment and as far as I have seen don’t seem to correlate with whether people reach SVR or not. I still experience them sometimes but my specialist can find no reason for them despite lots of checks including various scans, etc. Having said that, do discuss them with your clinic.

Weight? Sigh, I put on 6kg on treatment myself despite significantly increasing my exercise and fitness. I’m not sure whether it was because I had a better appetite or because I was metabolising my food better but it has taken six months to finally get rid of them which I understand is beneficial for anyone with liver complications. (Edit: I do find I can tolerate fats much better these days so don’t specifically avoid them as much and that may be something to consider)

Congratulations Sven!

as long as the supply chain can be trusted

Thanks Vororo, I just want to highlight the above point which is something that both this site and Greg have always stressed.

Hi Jonathon,

Most people with HCV spend a great deal of time worrying about the risks of passing it on to our loved ones, friends and others so we are well aware of your concerns but the actual risk in many situations is very low as shown by the high proportion of people here whose partners and children, etc. aren’t infected despite living together for many, many years prior to diagnosis.

The risk directly relates to HCV infected blood entering your bloodstream and even then it is fairly low unless larger quantities are involved. For example the statistics show that the risk of a “needle stick” injury to a healthcare worker from a known HCV infected patient causing infection is in the order of 1.8%.

Your potential risk appears to be from your bleeding pimples and as such seems low but I can understand your ongoing concern at the very slight risk of infection. As well as reading the link Hieupham has kindly provided above, if you are still worried I would recommend that you discuss this further with your own doctor who will be able to assess and answer any concerns you have and also provide any testing should you or he think it necessary.

Thanks MG. Having tried twice with Dac combos I’ve decided to look for a three way to really nail it this time. Currently doing something I’ve had plenty of previous practice at …….waiting! There are some good options coming through for relapsed GT3s but time seems to drag.

I’m sorry my comments were seen as implying support for your outgoing administration (they weren’t) and a commentary on the election result (they weren’t). I do hope the US evolves affordable medical care for its citizens, whatever form that takes.

“Obamacare”

Be wary of propaganda! As an outsider can I just say that the throwing about of the above word denotes your problem. Someone has managed to politicise and personalise an attempt to provide better healthcare for all US citizens……and appears to have been so successful in making it about one person that they are no doubt laughing all the way to the bank.

Your problem here isn’t your soon to be ex president…..and abolishing the imperfect scheme he attempted to put in place isn’t the solution. But someone has managed to get you all referring to it by his name rather that it’s correct title and blaming the greed driven price increases on it such that you now appear to believe that getting rid of him and it will solve all your problems as “anything’s better”. It suggests to me that the vested interests and lobbyists have been working overtime to ensure the man is played rather than the ball. If The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is dismantled expect your politicians from both sides to do what they appear to have done for years and give the ball a spit and polish and throw it back into play. As an observer I see a ‘just blame Barack’ public relations exercise with no inclination or incentive for them to “fix the damn problems” the doc mentions.

Pharmaceutical prices are excessive globally and this is a problem for even the best health care systems. Generics are one part of the solution, admittedly a vital part to HCV patients like ourselves. On that note, has anyone found out anything more about the current status of the Indian patent challenge?

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