Hi Doctor James,

Thanks for the offer!

In fact, this clinic rang my GP 6 or 8 months ago and told her “Don’t give this guy a prescription, he’s trying to import illegal generics from overseas”. This caused a certain amount of stress between self and GP. After that incident, it’s possible I neglected to mention to either clinic or GP that I’d sourced my own medication from Mesochem without a prescription.

I’m only hanging round the clinic now in case I relapse again and need re-treatment, but you’re right, if I do have to be treated again, I would be better off seeing someone like you rather than going through the clinic.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be hijacking this thread.

GAJ,

I think you put your finger on it. With a replication rate like that, the little horrors could go from a few stragglers to an invading horde in a matter of days – or even hours.

Hamilton,

It looks like we’re both going the same path. According to the EASL guidelines I should be taking 24 weeks of ribavirin, but opinion seems to be growing that ribavirin has big side effects but little effect on the virus. Since the last time I took it, it seemed to have no effect at all, I’ve decided to give it a miss this time, and just take sofosbuvir+ledipasvir.

dointime,

Thanks for clearing that up. I’ve seen the term viral breakthrough in the literature and wondered if that was what I had. I think if I had been treated just with interferon+ribavirin I would have been a non-responder, but the addition of simeprevir made it look as if the therapy was working. Still, its all academic now.

I’m not sure it is “just a few stragglers”.

I was treated a year or so back with 24 weeks of simeprevir+interferon+ribavirin. At week 4 my VL was <15. At week 12 my VL was undetected and my LFTs were like a teenagers. At that point the clinic said "You're cured. We'll stop the simeprevir and you can have another year or so of interferon+ribavirin to make sure you stay cured."

I wasn't very happy about that, but I couldn't have taken any more simeprevir anyway, the side effects were horrendous. I figured I'd continue the interferon+ribavirin at least to the end of the 24 week treatment. At week 16 (4 weeks after finishing the simeprevir) my LFTs had gone through the roof. At week 24 my VL was 17,000,000. 5 times higher than when I started treatment. At that point I dedcided the interferon+ribavirin wasn't doing me any good at all, and stopped taking it.

So my relapse was so massive and so fast (within a couple of weeks to make my LFTs react like that) that I just don't think a few stragglers could have done it. Even though my VL had been zero or approximately zero for months, there must still have been a massive stock of little virus beasties just waiting to jump out and put the boot in as soon as they got the chance.

Incidentally, the clinic's response to this was along the lines of 'you can't relapse while you're on therapy'. The actual words the nurse used were "We know you didn't take the interferon, you might as well tell us". It's support like this that makes it all bearable.

Hi Miko,

My personal experience: I’ve been treated with Simeprevir+interferon+ribavirin. The Simeprevir side effects were by far the worst. I thought I was going to die. Once I finished the Simeprevir part of the course, the interferon side effects were, in comparison, just mildly unpleasant.

Also, no bike riding on Simeprevir. After the first week, every time I went out, my skin started peeling off, and I grew big, red blisters on my eyeballs. After the second week, I was bed ridden. On top of that, the treatment was totally ineffective.

On the other hand, maybe Simeprevir will work for you.