Welcome Fernandez,

We do have a number of UK members who will be able to provide specific advice on your best options for monitoring in the London area. Until they arrive please feel free to ask us any more general questions you may have.

I know what you mean and I’ve still got 2.5 weeks to go.

Hi Serg,

Well yes, apparently Roy M. Poses MD has those beliefs. Again I’m unable to find any evidence provided by him to back them up. Maybe a cautionary canary in the mine? Possibly but there don’t appear to be large numbers of other medical professionals taking a lot of notice of his song.

The best evidence available suggests that most patients with hepatitis C will not go on to have severe complications of the disease (cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer), and hence could not benefit much from treatment.

Hmm, so most patients who don’t have the three HCV related complications he mentions will get no benefit from treatment because their complications aren’t severe enough? Maybe he has “evidence based medicine” that shows that F3 patients lead a perfectly normal, active, healthy life with no ill effects? Perhaps he has been provided with enough “evidence based medicine” to prove to his satisfaction that no extrahepatitic manifestations of any kind occur?

For the rest of his arguments all I can do is thank him and tell him I will take his caution under advisement. No doubt I and most of the rest of the world will get on with the great experiment of living. By doing so and taking what appears to be the best option available currently we will gradually build up the “large scale trial evidence” he apparently requires before he makes decisions. Of course this may take a few decades but personally I don’t have time to wait.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for highlighting Ronald Koretz’ article. I had previously dismissed it based on the blurb and first few seconds of the video but your comments made me return to it. He is obviously an outlier of the HCV field in many ways but that is not necessarily a bad thing if it encourages others to review their positions and actions.

Personally I disagree with what appears to be his main contention; that because there is not a complete alleviation of all progression of liver disease in all patients after SVR then it is not a cure. I get his argument that Interferon+/-Ribavirin was not always beneficial and has ongoing problems for many patients (hah, I’m a walking argument for that proposition) but I believe that was well known but certainly not universally acknowledged in the Hepatology community for a long time. Interferon was always seen as less than benign in other fields were it was used too but was usually the only option available at the time. However, for him to extraplolate that to the current use of DAAs is a big leap based on the evidence so far. I think that while it is early days for DAA treatment, the benefits we are seeing accrue for the many outweight the possibility that for a few the outcome won’t change. As he would ask of others, where is his evidence to support his current position? Having said that I do agree with his points about evidence based medicine rather than just marketing driven and that does mean long term follow ups. That is how we learn and progress science/medicine.

In the meantime I agree with your three points of benefit, though I suspect you understate the first. The evidence seems to be building that while it doesn’t completely remove the risks there is a significant risk reduction there. The third point is the real winner though!

Edit: beachs, good point about his hymn sheet. As I said, a review of his history shows him to be an outlier though I didn’t find much about his drivers. Hopefully an enquiring mind but???

Is the first one a trick question? I’m not even going to try to second guess US customs!

From memory FedEx can charge you for any customs charges they incur on your behalf, but 89 cents?!?!

Hi Michael,

I can’t provide experience on sides after EOT (yet!) but after 24 weeks treatment your body will be saturated with the meds because of their half life. While you probably aren’t in a rush to get pregnant just yet and these are ultra safe timings for that event, this post has some useful information on clearing the meds from your body. I would expect the Sof and Led level drops to start to be noticeable around the 2-4 week marks. The Riba will depend if you took at start or end of treatment but even if during the first 12 weeks there will still be traces left at present.

http://fixhepc.com/forum/experts-corner/872-how-long-should-i-wait-after-treatment-before-getting-pregnant.html

It’s surprising how many annoying little problems that I’ve lived with for years have lessened or even gone away since I started Tx.