Viral Load of 8 million.

[hcvJames]

Just been noticing of all the post I've read no one comes close to a Viral Load of 8 million. Not everyone mentions their highest or give it at all so maybe it's not that uncommon. Just saying ... What does such a high VL mean?

The highest I've seen here is 5.5 million. What, if any, does the difference between the two mean? Or is there a level that's reached where it really doesn't matter.

Thanks

[myshewa]

At 40 years old I found out I had hep c, viral load at 4000 now I'm 64 years old and just heard it is 5000000. Treatment twice both didn't work. The older I get the more scared I get. I get judged by doctors everytime I tell them I have Hep C. I got mind from a tattoo in late 80s. Since I never did IV drugs that's the only thing I can think of.

[merryBe]

it means these things are infinitely small is what it means...
your VL is the amount of virus found in each milileter of blood...thats about 1/5 of a teaspoon or roughly 20 drops of blood.

if you have 8 mil VL that would mean each drop contains roughly 400,000 virons.

It's amazing the blood cells themselves can still exist with that many virons attached to them!!

to give it perspective, a person with a VL of 10 mil would be walking around with
120,000,000,000 virons in their body. that's 120 trillion.

the fact that some folks get down just fine while other don't should be cause to change the old school thinking, where VL was considered a predictor of outcome. In all likelyhold outcome is determined much more by other factors, dose, type of treatment, genetic predisposition, and other conditions (such as Nash, diebetes, etc.)

high Viral Load alone is not something you should let worry you. It's by no means the only predictor of outcome. Docs thought so before recent research, such as genetic predictors, but hopefully they are reevaluating in light of many newer stats.


mb

[epiphiny]

I was 17 million.... 1 million, 17 million, it makes no difference.  I can understand why people get so hung up on VL load though.  The only time VL is imporatnt is when you are testing to see your individual response to treatment.  The best VL is undetected.

[jusjames]

6 million ? thats like zero

xxxxxxxxx

[jdwithhcv]

I started tx at 6 million and went UND by week 4, maybe before that but that was my first PCR on tx.

white girl ;^)

[jusjames]

i have 11 000 000


caucasion male

[nygirl7]

Like Bill I started with a low VL of only 568,000 and yet I did not clear even with extra meds until somewhere right before week 24.  You just can't figure this stuff out.

A two log drop is necessary by week 12 but if you still are positive at week 12 it's time to begin considering an extension to week 72 because preferably you need to be UND *undetectible* by that week.

The best indicator is to be UND at week 4.

[charm27]

My viral load was 75 million right before I started tx. I was UND at week 6 or 7. I had my 1 year post PCR I am SVR,

I was told from day 1 NOT TO concern myself with the VL.'


Good luck

[hcvJames]

Read on another thread you achieved SVR recently. Very big congrats!! Thank you for taking time to reply, what with all the handstands you must be doing! :))

copyman - that Telaprevir is sounding like quite a drug. Since you cleared it's not so bad to say it makes me feel a bit better knowing someone else had a higher VL. No never read what you said. From it I take, it means something when treating because of change or lack of change.

Bill1954 : reading around people mention a (-2 log) reading ... is this the criteria used to determine UND? So in the case of 8 million they would look for a (-2 log) drop to 8,000? And this is suppose to happen around week 12?

Thanks everyone,
all good people

[Bill1954]

I think it’ important to keep in mind that logarithmic scale is preferred over numerical view to look at viral load. A one log change from say, 5 million is either 500,000 or 50 million; anything in between has very little meaning, due to the way viral load testing works.

We occasionally see members report viral loads of >50,000,000 IU/mL; I’m not sure it’s even significant in the larger picture.

Your viral load of 8,000,000 is pretty common from my knowledge; I don’t think it’s a big concern, short of it being there in the first place. A decent response from these meds will bring that down in days.  Some of the new protease and polymerase inhibitor drugs are delivering 4 and 5 log reductions in very short periods of time, too.

On the other hand, I’ve had many tests done, and never had a VL over 150,000; and had a dickens of a time ridding myself of the virus :o). But, I eventually prevailed.

Bill

[copyman]

my viral load was as high as 20 million and 12 million when I started a Telaprevir study. i was clear at less then 3 weeks and remain clear 6 months after stopping.
you said you have been reading some of the posts here, did you happen to read that the VL means nothing unless treating. don't worry so much about the VL. in reality a VL of 1 million is not much different then a VL of 8 million.

[lalapple]

I started treatment around 4 Million.  Some people think that viral load is correlated with liver damage, but that doesn't seem to be the case all the time.  I don't think it should affect the treatment success rate as much as the strain.  For instance Genotype 1 usually requires 48wks of treatment, whereas 2 and 3 only need 24wks.