More Hepatitis Treatment Information

Standard-of-care treatment is interferon administered subcutaneously once per week and ribavirin administered by mouth twice per day. The dosage of riba typically ranges from 800 mg to 1200 mg per day, depending on the case. IFN dosage varies depending on the specific type of IFN and diagnostic factors, but I received 180 mcg of Pegasys once per week and that's is a common prescription.

The subcutaneous injection, where a very thin needle is poked into fat layer just beneath the skin (usually over the abdominal area), is a routine method of drug administration for many people and not all that troublesome. Type I diabetics, for example, administer life-saving insulin this way on a daily basis.

When I started HCV Tx, I'd already administered sub-Q injections to patients in clinical environments, and so doing it to myself required no time on a learning curve. Although, I must say, my technique improved once I was my own willing victim.. Sometimes, to get in my injection as soon as possible at the end of my week, I'd take it with me to administer before I would get home. This gave me a head start on getting past the IFN sides that kick in heaviest for a couple few days after the injection

Fight off Hepatitis C

Good question from the Hepatitis C Newsgroup:

Q. Just curious if it's at all possible for your immune system to eradicate hep c? I haven't had tests done in a while (has to do with
insurance, etc.) Anyway I found out the last time I went in that I was fine on liver enzymes, they found no viral load, and I got a new piece of info which was that I had and no longer have Hep B. If I had the Hep B before the Hep c is there a chance i could've killed off the hep c and be fine, but still test positive for antibodies?

Yes, I'm really quiet ignorant on all this, please don't flame me.

A. Regardless of how you kill off live HCV virions, antibodies to the virus will likely persist. So you would be probably turn up positive for the standard first-order Hep-C test, which actually tests for antibodies, but negative for the viral load test, which actually tests for whole virions.

As to whether you may have cleared the HCV infection on your own: most folks that clear the virus do it before it has reached a chronic condition (ie: some time before 6 months to a year). It is apparently possible, but rare, to clear the virus once it has persisted in the body beyond that window.

The only way to accurately gauge where you are with HCV is to get a fresh viral load test.

I have never seen word one that suggests HBV infections have any positive
effect on an HCV infection. If you actually cleared your HCV, it wasn't
because you got co-infected with HBV...

Cheers

greyhackles