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Fibroscan: Is it any good?
Hello again, fellow Medhelpers! Greetings from Buenos Aires, where we avidly await the beginning of spring. The winter down here in the Southern Hemisphere has been too long, and some people here think there won't be any summer at all this year. Global warming, melting ice caps, and all that sorta stuff. Argentines are hysterical. But it sure is unseasonably cold.
I hope I am still remembered by y'all with affection in spite of my past weird and occasionally wicked postings. I certainly haven't forgotten any of you dear people. You have been my port in the storm.
To give a quickie update, I am still without Tx, waiting for my hep MD to make up his mind what to do with me. I think these Argentine medics are kinda scared to do anything, afraid of scandal (can you see the headline: "American Tango Dancer Succumbs to Third-World Hepatitis Treatment"?).
The latest, and the real reason for this post (aside from my penchant for aggravating everyone with my dubious attempts at humor), is that they just got a Fibroscan machine at my hospital, trained a young female medic to run it, and I have been one of its first victims...er, I mean subjects.
The results are crazy and scary. It gave F2/F3. Now, just a year ago a biopsy and a FibroTC (tomography analyzed, see my images page), as well as many blood analyses and ecodopplers and whatnot, gave me as being F0/F1. How the heck can someone with almost normal hepatic enzymes (transaminases), otherwise totally normal blood tests, and scores of F0/F1 a year ago, suddenly be F2/F3? Is this possible? Is it credible? Or is their new Fibroscan machine a piece of junk, despite the cute operator?
Anybody out there with an opinion on this, my latest predicament?
All replies will be appreciated, and the one that is most helpful wins a free trip to Buenos Aires (by kayak and Moped) and three free tango lessons from yours truly (if I'm still above-ground).
Hugs.
Mike
I hope I am still remembered by y'all with affection in spite of my past weird and occasionally wicked postings. I certainly haven't forgotten any of you dear people. You have been my port in the storm.
To give a quickie update, I am still without Tx, waiting for my hep MD to make up his mind what to do with me. I think these Argentine medics are kinda scared to do anything, afraid of scandal (can you see the headline: "American Tango Dancer Succumbs to Third-World Hepatitis Treatment"?).
The latest, and the real reason for this post (aside from my penchant for aggravating everyone with my dubious attempts at humor), is that they just got a Fibroscan machine at my hospital, trained a young female medic to run it, and I have been one of its first victims...er, I mean subjects.
The results are crazy and scary. It gave F2/F3. Now, just a year ago a biopsy and a FibroTC (tomography analyzed, see my images page), as well as many blood analyses and ecodopplers and whatnot, gave me as being F0/F1. How the heck can someone with almost normal hepatic enzymes (transaminases), otherwise totally normal blood tests, and scores of F0/F1 a year ago, suddenly be F2/F3? Is this possible? Is it credible? Or is their new Fibroscan machine a piece of junk, despite the cute operator?
Anybody out there with an opinion on this, my latest predicament?
All replies will be appreciated, and the one that is most helpful wins a free trip to Buenos Aires (by kayak and Moped) and three free tango lessons from yours truly (if I'm still above-ground).
Hugs.
Mike
If you decide to go with SOC,this "plan" is basically what most people do anyway.
"It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. "
Unknown
"It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. "
Unknown
Thanks for the good words, Beck. You don´t sound foggy to me at all. I sure hope you´re feeling better today.
Who knows if any of these tests are any good? With what I´m going through, I no longer trust any of them, biopsy, FibroTC, or Fibroscan. They´re all shooting in the dark. And deep down I suspect the new ones are basically things to sell to make profits for some company or other. It´s all a big "medical market".
The craziest thing is that I now suspect that the radiation from the tomography I had done last year for the FibroTC test is the cause of my progressing to F3-F4. The FibroTC people never warned me about the radiation danger, but I heard about it after doing the tomography. It´s the only thing I can think of that might have caused the jump.
I think as long as your AST/ALT stays the same, your condition isn´t changing too fast. But I´m not too sure these transaminases have much to do with the amount of fibrosis. I think they´re more like a current check on what´s happening, not retrospective. Not very reliable, in any case, as my experience is now proving.
You´re probably right about the bx being wrong. That´s what my hep MD thinks, too. Although he ways pretty keen on the bx at the time. Now he´s back-peddling. The docs don´t really know what´s what, either. It´s all a lot of guess-work. Hard to put the blame on them, although their haughty, kmow-it-all attitude puts them on the spot when anything goes wrong, like it has now for me.
The bottom line, I guess, is that I should have treated right away, just like Dietterich and others said. And I probably ought to treat ASAP. The p`roblem is figuring our where and how. Being caught down here in Argentina makes all those decisions a whole lot more difficult.
Anyway, thanks again for your post, and I hope you´re keeping on top of the Tx.
Hugs.
Mike
Who knows if any of these tests are any good? With what I´m going through, I no longer trust any of them, biopsy, FibroTC, or Fibroscan. They´re all shooting in the dark. And deep down I suspect the new ones are basically things to sell to make profits for some company or other. It´s all a big "medical market".
The craziest thing is that I now suspect that the radiation from the tomography I had done last year for the FibroTC test is the cause of my progressing to F3-F4. The FibroTC people never warned me about the radiation danger, but I heard about it after doing the tomography. It´s the only thing I can think of that might have caused the jump.
I think as long as your AST/ALT stays the same, your condition isn´t changing too fast. But I´m not too sure these transaminases have much to do with the amount of fibrosis. I think they´re more like a current check on what´s happening, not retrospective. Not very reliable, in any case, as my experience is now proving.
You´re probably right about the bx being wrong. That´s what my hep MD thinks, too. Although he ways pretty keen on the bx at the time. Now he´s back-peddling. The docs don´t really know what´s what, either. It´s all a lot of guess-work. Hard to put the blame on them, although their haughty, kmow-it-all attitude puts them on the spot when anything goes wrong, like it has now for me.
The bottom line, I guess, is that I should have treated right away, just like Dietterich and others said. And I probably ought to treat ASAP. The p`roblem is figuring our where and how. Being caught down here in Argentina makes all those decisions a whole lot more difficult.
Anyway, thanks again for your post, and I hope you´re keeping on top of the Tx.
Hugs.
Mike
Is that a good plan: do a 48-week SOC; if that doesn´t work, do a 72-week SOC with a different form of interferon; and then if that didn´t work, do the SOC+PI when it gets approved? (I´m big on having consequences and alternatives planned out beforehand.)
M.
M.
Hiya, GoofyDad, nice to hear from you. And thanks for the good words. They help a lot.
Regarding your question about tango dancers, why do you think they get lucky? Lucky about what? Meeting the right partner? Speaking for myself, I haven´t had much luck on that score at the classes and dances I go to here. There are a lot of nice looking women, but they´re kinda shy and afraid of foreigners for the most part. Many of them just go to dance, and have hubbies and boyfriends somewhere. For us single guys, it´s more a place to enjoy yourself dancing than to find a woman. At least, that´s been my experience.
But maybe that´s not what you meant...
M.
Regarding your question about tango dancers, why do you think they get lucky? Lucky about what? Meeting the right partner? Speaking for myself, I haven´t had much luck on that score at the classes and dances I go to here. There are a lot of nice looking women, but they´re kinda shy and afraid of foreigners for the most part. Many of them just go to dance, and have hubbies and boyfriends somewhere. For us single guys, it´s more a place to enjoy yourself dancing than to find a woman. At least, that´s been my experience.
But maybe that´s not what you meant...
M.
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