Pegetron in Canada

I have just picked up my prescription and take my first shot on Saturday night - what a different way to spend a saturday evening! Because ihave been having difficulty in finding information at this specific product (some of you are on pegIntron and others are on Pegasys) i wanted to know if pegetron is the same medication but with a different name?

If anyone knows that would be great - I know i have asked this before and someone had thought i was on pegintron - i dont think its the same. But i may be mistaken. If anyone else is on Pegetron it would be great to find out if the side effects you have endured are very bad or mild. Have to run but i would really appreciate anyone with info on this brand to give me an update on what to expect

Thanks everyone!


For Canadians looking for more information on Pegetron you can find it by copying the link below:

www.catie.ca/facts.nsf/0/ac14ffc3b7d388a385256c4c004bed36?openDocument

[Southernboy]

Hi there,
The combination of Pegasys (peginterferon alfa 2b) and Copegus is sold under the name of Pegetron in Canada.
Hope you are well and best to you,
Steve

[Revenire]

Pegatron is made by Schering, the maker of PEG-Intron. I believe it was approved in Canada in December of 2002. It is not Pegasys.

Try the sites below for more information and links in Canada.

<a href="http://www.canhepc.net/">Canadian Hepatitis C Network</a>

<a href="http://www.hepcyorkregion.org/main.htm">Hepatitis C Society of Canada</a>

<a href="http://www.hepcyorkregion.org/related.htm">whole BUNCH of Canadian resources for Hep C</a>

Best,

Scott

[Southernboy]

Hi Scott,

You are absolutely correct, peginterferon alfa-2a is Pegasys and peginterferon alfa-2b is PegIntron.  My error......must be due to brain fog.  Have trouble remembering my own name these days which is why I usually keep to myself.

Thanks for the correction and hope you are well,
Steve

[Revenire]

Pegatron is Alfa-2B (the same as PEG-Intron), Pegasys is Alfa-2A.

[Revenire]

I had to look it up too, brain fog myself.

Thanks for asking ... I am doing fine. Been off the riba for 2 weeks, post-tx has its moments too. Like many others, the last few weeks of tx were easier than the 1st 2 weeks after tx.

How are YOU doing?

Scott

[ringading]

HEY GUYS ARE ANY OF YOU GOING TO THE CONFERENCE IN VANCOVER IN MARCH, HOSTED BY THE CANADIAN HEPATITIS C NETWORK??????

[Southernboy]

Scott,

As well as can be expected, thanks for asking.  I was off of tx for 8 weeks in October and November.  It took about 6 weeks before one day I was looking at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth and turned to my wife and said "I'm back".

Started on the interferon gamma-1b, interferon alfacon-1 (Infergen) and Riba combo at the end of November.  It has been......interesting.  Only thing I can say is, "if it works, it's worth it".  So far the Docs seem to be pleased with the results, but we won't really know until the 12 week mark....another 6 weeks.  I will keep everybody informed as this could be an alternative for non-responders and relapsers.

Best to you and everyone here.  While I don't post much I still keep an eye on the threads and usually end up much entertained.  Humor is sometimes the best med.

Steve

[Revenire]

Nope, I live in Wisconsin. I wish I could go though ...

If you know a guy named Andy Aitken tell him Scott says hello.

Thx.

[Revenire]

Yeah, I can't wait to say to my wife "I'm back" someday too.

Did you do tx before and relapse? Or not respond? I did 50 weeks of Pegasys and 1000mg riba and then switched to a half dose of peg to see if I could kick the fibrosis back a stage or 2, like BobK did.

Good luck to you friend.

[ringading]

YAH I KNOW ANDY!!!!...JUST TALKED TO HIM LAST NIGHT...GREAT GREAT GUY, LIVES NEAR ME AS WELL...IN THE WILDS OF QUEBEC

HE IS THE REASON I FINALLY GOT TREATMENT COVERED BY THE QUEBEC GOVER.  HE IS TIRERLESS AND DOES SOOO VERY MUCH FOR THIS CAUSE OF OURS.....AND IS MUCH APPRECIATED.....

OKAY HAVE I SAID ENOUGH GOOD STUFF YET CAUSE I TOLD HIM TO CHECK THIS SITE OUT LAST NIGHT...HAHAHA!!!!

kimmy

[ringading]

p.s.......you can still go....it is not exclusive to canadians!!
but open to anyone with an interest in HEP C....anyone interested can go back up to the link by revenire..spl.....

canadian hepatitis c network.......and find the info....if its not all there and you want more information on the conference, let me know....
kimmy

[Southernboy]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the good words and thoughts.  Don't worry, your time will come when you realize that tx is becoming just a not so fond memory.

I was on Pegasys/Riba combo for 28 weeks starting in January 2003.  Was a slow responder, did not have an EVR and never quite cleared although the count got down pretty low.  I realized that my chances of SVR were very slim on standard protocol so went searching for alternatives and this new combo was the best I could find.....we will see what happens.

Here's to your "I'm back" happening sooner then later.

Steve

[Revenire]

Damn, small world isn't it? I met Andy on another board about a year ago. He IS a great guy.

[Southernboy]

Scott,

One more thing.  HOW THE H*LL DO YOU GET THOSE LINKS TO WORK ON THIS BOARD?  I know that this has been gone over before, but I never really tried.  Now that I want to do it I can't seem to figure it out!!!

Steve

[Better Angels]

Sorry, some of the coding came off in the posting, don't know why... replace the brackets with < at the beginning and </a> to close the tag. The URL needs to be in quotation marks, and the word you want to act as the link needs to be between <these>. Hopefully you can piece enough of this together to create the link. But if not, you can still go to the website I provided for additional help.

Debbe

[Revenire]

That didn't come out exactly correct. Let me show you later -- gotta run to work!

[layla]

I'm also in Wisconsin, 1/2 hour west of Mke and you? If you don't mind if I ask. LL

[Revenire]

A half hour west of Milwaukee? Damn, I live in Wauwatosa. We moved back 'home' 3 years ago, after 20 years in the Town Called Malice known as the City of Angels aka Los Angeles. My nurse at Froedert tells me of a support group that meets Thursday nights ... I work 2nd so I can't go but maybe you'd enjoy it. I've never been but if I could get off I'd try it.

Email me at ***@**** if you like ...

Scott

[Revenire]

Try this ...

<a href= "http://www.mkandrew.com/Ribavenger.htm" > The Ribavenger </a>

But leave no spaces between the character = and the next quotation mark and the last quotation mark and the character > or the > where your text goes <

So href="paste in the url">whatever text you want to give it<

[Revenire]

Urggh!! I give up for now ... ask Willing, he's the Man that showed me how. After this many tries it is good thing I am off the riba or I'd be either crying, throwing my monitor to the floor, or laughing.

[layla]

I'm next door. Infact I was at Froedert this morning for labs. My first since Oct. Hope I am not dead or anything! haha.  I have actually met a few people I've posted with from forums. Made a couple very good friends. The first person I met on my first forum right after dx is coming to visit me this month. She walked me through the trauma of dx and my first shot AND even baked and sent me cookies. Can you imagine?
I have to do my shot then I'm out to dinner tonight. I'll email you this weekend. LL

[Revenire]

My doctor over there is Dr. Varma -- great guy.

[Better Angels]

It's easy, just replace the brackets [ and ] with < and >. The coding looks like this

[a href="http://www.medhelp.org>Here</a]


That should do ya, but if you need more help, just <a href="http://owens4">click here</a> and go to the tools page for easy lessons in HTML.

Good Luck,
Debbe

[Revenire]

It is easy:

How to code html into sites

<a href="http://www.mkandrew.com/Ribavenger.htm">Friends! Get the Ribavenger -- save your families the grief of a riba-rage attack with this handy cure!</a>

You paste the link inbetween the spot where the quotation marks are, then put the text of the link inbetween where the >______< is. In other words: <a href="___link___">___text___</a>

That's it.

Have fun!

[willing]

Hi Steve, here's that how-to-html post. I added a line on how to embed images, but, huh, remember we're an easily-overwhelmed audience...
--------
Everything we type into the "post a comment" window actually gets turned into HTML by the medhelp site-management software.
HTML is a a way of describing what a web page should look like. Often it's mostly text, but every once in a while there's
something called a "tag" that tells the browser to display something unusual. Tags usually have the form "&lt;X&gt; text &lt;/X&gt;"
where "X" is some tag name.
<br>
For example, the "strong" tag is used for emphasis: if you type &lt;strong&gt; emphasize this &lt;/strong&gt; in a post, what people see is <strong> emphasize this </strong>.
<br>
The tag used to display a link to another web page is named with the letter "a" (for anchor). In the opening part of the tag you insert the URL address.
<br>
For example, if you type &lt;a href="http://www.medhelp.org"&gt;this link&lt;/a&gt what people will see is <a href="http://www.medhelp.org">this link</a>.
<br>
The tag used to display an image in the midst of your post is named "img". Once again you reference the URL of the image you want to display, however the format is a bit different. For example if you type &lt;img src="http://www.medhelp.org/images/logosm.gif"&gt; what people will see is <img src="http://www.medhelp.org/images/logosm.gif">;, the bitmap that appears at the top left of the medhelp screen.
<br>
A caution : if the fog is piled thick and deep, which it often is for me, it's easy to stumble while typing the tag opening or closing. Unfortunately, the software that manages this site is not very robust about detecting HTML errors in a post. In particu
lar, if you leave out the closing " while typing in the href="web address" no one else will be able to post to that thread, as I discovered a while back.. Hope this helps. If you want to see what the actual HTML for a web page you're looking at try "View|
Frame Source" in Netscape or "View|source" in IE.

[Southernboy]

Hi people,
Thanks for all your help with the links.  I think that with all the information provided that I can do a link and will try the next time I need to.

willing: Great explanation, had to read it several times so that I could remember the begining by the time I reached the end.  Brain fog again. Thanks.

befuddled: When I am thinking somewhat clearly, I think that brain fog may be a good thing...helps us forget the bad tx times and makes it a little easier to continue.  Then again, maybe I'm not thinking clearly now.  Oh well, I'll figure it all out after tx is over.

Best to all,
Steve

[berlynn]

Scott, hi how are ya doing? I wanted to thank you for your help with my girlfriend,,she told me that she finally emailed you..Someone posted a site or number on here....brain fog..can't remmember which or who posted it...teehee
Anyway, i forwarded it to her and it was a med company that works with your ins. and you do not have to pay a deductable...since hers was so high...this really helped out.....
All of us here are sooooo lucky to have friends like you who are willing to reach out to help others..thanks again for being there. Hope you are enjoying this warm weather we're having!!! take care, berlynn (Kim)

PS good luck with the neew tx...let us know how you're doing  :)

[soulangel71]

Thank you for the replies everyone! I have  taken a look at the links some of you posted - great information! thanks so much!!

I will get keep in touch once my treatment starts Saturday

D