Hi Geoff, many of us here have had very similar experiences and often refer to it as “brain fog”. After close to four decades of infection I was aware I was forgetful and bad tempered prior to commencing treatment but I did not realise how bad it was or how much of it was due to this virus. Within several weeks of commencing treatment my intellectual and emotional states had both improved greatly as did physical aspects. While there is no guarantee that all your problems will resolve with treatment I suspect there is a very good chance that you will experience considerable improvements.

it’s easy to forget that F0 and F1 is not no fibrosis. Compared to the general this is significant fibrosis of the liver.

From my reading I believe that F0 does represent no fibrosis and F1 is mild fibrosis. Fibrosis implies some level of liver damage which ranges from very minor through to extreme and can occur in many ways other than just via hepatitis or excess alcohol consumption. Here is some further information regarding the general population which would seem to indicate that most people have some level of fibrosis.

“Between 90–95% of healthy people without liver disease will have a liver scarring measurement less then 7.0 kPa (median is 5.3 kPa).”

http://hepatitiscnewdrugresearch.com/fibroscan-results-the-scoring-card.html

So most of the adult population sit somewhere in the F0-F1 range but I do agree that those who currently have HCV would be well advised to not drink and those who have achieved SVR need to be particularly mindful of their consumption in line with their fibrosis level.

I wasn’t too impressed when I found it either Jeff!

Warning for those with Cirrhosis

I came across this study in my reading and thought it was worth including here for those of us with cirrhosis. It’s a fairly small study and probably retrospective so I’m not sure if the study cohort was truly randomly selected. Of interest is the reasonably low (15g per day) average alcohol intake in those who drank.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27180899

Early days but it should serve as a note of caution, to quote part of the lay summary:

Patients with HCV-related cirrhosis should be strongly advised against any alcohol intake.

The rest of you can probably recharge your glasses now.

I agree, you shouldn’t risk your cure to try to make a short term statement.

I don’t know what the US customs requirements are on entry with prescription drugs. However, if it was me I don’t think I would be trying to hide/smuggle them in, that will certainly cause problems if you are caught. If I couldn’t get a script then my thoughts would be to carry them in personal luggage in their original opened packaging if still available (and a daily dosing box if you use one) just like they were Aspirin or similar. I would ensure that I had access to something that showed I was diagnosed with HCV or on treatment in amongst my personal papers or files or on my phone/computer that I could pull out if questioned.

If they refused to let them in then I would go into activist mode and create as much noise and publicity as possible about a citizen being denied life saving medications in my attempts to have them returned.

This thread ran off track many pages ago, appears to be serving little useful purpose and is now locked.

Wonderful news Panamajo!

So glad to hear that you finally achieved your dream.

I agree that normalising the virus in the eyes of the public is important and understand that the medical profession uses tough minded cynicism amongst themselves to help them cope with what can be emotionally stressful jobs.

The thing about stigma is that it is not just what you think about the disease…..it is about how others perceive it and as a result view and treat you and how their behaviour makes you feel. If you and your loved ones are strong and resilient and don’t care too much about what other people think and you live somewhere that has and abides by antidiscrimination laws then you may be able to participate in life and your community in a reasonably normal manner. But I also fully understand and support those who choose not to expose themselves and their loved ones to the risks that the stigma presents.

I made the decision to start telling most people my story last November. Of interest, four of the people I told then disclosed they either have, had or are close to someone with HCV. These are all people I have known well, some closely, for many years which shows just how pervasive the stigma is. I can also vouch for Cheese’s comment about “HOW DID YOU GET THAT” this being my experience with about 90% of the people I have told. Another thing that came to light was that due to my closeness to the issue I assumed others had similar knowledge to me but I became aware of the appalling lack of knowledge that most people have of this disease, its symptoms, transmission and prognosis. No wonder there is much fear out there, the stigma prevents people talking about the issue and the resulting ignorance drives the stigma.

There were a number of reasons I decided to reveal my status to others, as well as the personal ones and spreading the word about generic DAAs as an available and affordable means of ridding the world of this pandemic, I feel now that for me it is important to help in some small way to educate people and hopefully lift the veils that stigma has created about HCV.