Good to see the tenacity in dealing with hepatitis with all those involved.

Given my checkered history with Hep C, compared with my good luck (with a little help of AstraZeneca) missing out on getting COVID, I think these efforts are well worth the praise.

Jeff

I am another ‘hoverer’ too.

I tend to dip in and out of this forum for a look see occasionally.

After being on this forum over so any years, and through the days when people like me were trying to get better using new meds after having been jaded a bit by interferon and the like, I found a lot of people showing humanity’s better side.

Hep C took many things from me, but it gave me this experience and in a perverse way, balanced the books.

Many thanks for the support from the Dr James, Gaj’s and other forum members.

For those considering starting on the the final chapter of Hep C, the journey of getting treated and becoming well, please don’t mind me hovering.

Jeff

Hi Rockhard,

my first treatment with Sof/Dac went well with no side effects and I felt great. But some time after end of treatment the virus came back.

Second time around did the same with Riba added. I had the same concerns about side effects because I had the experience with Riba years before when I was on interferon. Still think the stuff is in some ways like a hangover – at least what I remember of one before I had to go on the Hep C wagon. Heaps less so with DAAs. I was using Sof/Dac as well which side effect wise may be different to what you are using?

I tolerated the stuff as best I could, and it is difficult as life and work goes on, but I found it manageable. I am cured now as well and all things equal, the Riba did make the difference.

I don’t know what the doctor will suggest to you Riba wise, but I hope knowing that Riba is manageable and others here are supportive, may help any decision you make with your doctor. I like a simple life and just do what I am told.

All the best and hope to see you posting your SVR soon.

Jeff

Can’t remember what mine was.

In the end I got treated and got rid of the virus.

Can’t remember now if the viral load is/was that significant for treatment in my case – GT3??

Made a difference though when it become undetected!

It’s funny that this is all a distant memory now I am free of Hep C.

All the best with your treatment,

Jeff

Hi Glenn,

just adding my hello as one of the many who have beaten Hep C.

Part of the journey of getting rid of the bug is discovering that there are many good people in the world – they just go a bit unnoticed.

Jeff

“Fewer people have died from liver failure caused by hepatitis C since the government started subsidising new drugs in 2016”.

And probably a few less too since someone started making prescriptions for generics before that?

“Computed Tomography) uses Xrays to look at the liver. Triple phase contrast scans are usually conducted to look cancer. Doing one from time to time is low risk, but CT is not ideal for regular follow up in cirrhotic patients at high risk of liver cancer.”

They have really backed off with the CT scans with me and I now get by with ultrasounds. I understand that CT produces up to 200 times radiation of normal x-rays?

Risk benefit wise how do doctors weigh up whether another one is worth it?

Is having a large gap between them mean a reduction in risk, but there still is a cumulative effect?

J.

P.S.

for anyone reading this and still considering starting treatment, include these calculations in your thoughts – don’t wait for your liver to become cirrhotic.

‘Maybe, just maybe, the investigation will give clarity and choice of generics which the NHS would not give me because I was not “ill enough”!‘

From The Hippocratic Oath:

“I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.”

Would have thought if generics cured HepC, then they fitted in with this Oath somehow?

I suppose one irony is that you will never be ‘ill enough’ as you used generics and got cured.

Yours

Jeff