Aa
combination therapy and post transplantation
I was wondering if ther is anyone out there who has been successfully transplanted and is now receiving combination therapy for Hep C. What dosages are/were you taking and how did you respond?
I am post-transplant on tx for the first time, week 14 of 48, with peg-intron .5 on the #4 redipen and 1200 mg ribavirin a day.
Here are some of my transplant/treatment stats:
age 51 male; 5'10, 200 lbs.; liver is about 57 years old;
genotype 1a; contracted virus in 1974;
last biopsy was 6/2004, grade 2, stage 2)
eight days in a coma in 1999 with sepsis and multi-organ failure;
transplanted January 2001;
bilirubin always between 2.3 and 2.9 for last two years;
viral load always between five and eight million pre-transplant, and always estimated at greater than 3.5 million the last two years;
long history of encephalopathy and hyper-sensitivity to alcohol, apsirin, etc.;
cyclosplorine 75mg a.m./100 mg p.m.; 60 units lantus per day;
My ten-week pcr showed a 1430 copies IU/ml of the virus left, so I appear to be on the way to clearing the virus relatively quickly for a post-transplant 1a that is not doing anything fancy or aggressively treatment wise. My next pcr is Thursday, at the end of week 14. It would be awesome to be undetectable then. My hepatologist had given me about a forty percent chance of obtaining svr since I have not treated before.
My hgb has not fallen below 12.4 the whole treatment, so no rescue drugs needed to this point. Feel pretty horrible all the time since starting tx though. Only infections were minor shingles a few weeks in that lasted about a week and fungus around my nose and upper lip that comes and goes but responds well to lotrimin.
Post-transplant did great the first eighteen months [all liver #'s in normal range], but the hep c hit with a vengeance after that. Have been on long-term disability through my work since January 2005.
I increased Lantus from 33 to 55 units a day about three weeks into treatment and this helped with dehydration and made me feel better about avoiding infections.
This forum is great for getting practical and theoretical information about treatment from people who have been there. MikeSimon has treated post-transplant at a very renown transplant center and has lots of great advice for post-transplant treaters.
Let us know when you treat and some of your stats. It is always interesting to know how people are doing relative to this disease. You can get a lot of great support here!
Here are some of my transplant/treatment stats:
age 51 male; 5'10, 200 lbs.; liver is about 57 years old;
genotype 1a; contracted virus in 1974;
last biopsy was 6/2004, grade 2, stage 2)
eight days in a coma in 1999 with sepsis and multi-organ failure;
transplanted January 2001;
bilirubin always between 2.3 and 2.9 for last two years;
viral load always between five and eight million pre-transplant, and always estimated at greater than 3.5 million the last two years;
long history of encephalopathy and hyper-sensitivity to alcohol, apsirin, etc.;
cyclosplorine 75mg a.m./100 mg p.m.; 60 units lantus per day;
My ten-week pcr showed a 1430 copies IU/ml of the virus left, so I appear to be on the way to clearing the virus relatively quickly for a post-transplant 1a that is not doing anything fancy or aggressively treatment wise. My next pcr is Thursday, at the end of week 14. It would be awesome to be undetectable then. My hepatologist had given me about a forty percent chance of obtaining svr since I have not treated before.
My hgb has not fallen below 12.4 the whole treatment, so no rescue drugs needed to this point. Feel pretty horrible all the time since starting tx though. Only infections were minor shingles a few weeks in that lasted about a week and fungus around my nose and upper lip that comes and goes but responds well to lotrimin.
Post-transplant did great the first eighteen months [all liver #'s in normal range], but the hep c hit with a vengeance after that. Have been on long-term disability through my work since January 2005.
I increased Lantus from 33 to 55 units a day about three weeks into treatment and this helped with dehydration and made me feel better about avoiding infections.
This forum is great for getting practical and theoretical information about treatment from people who have been there. MikeSimon has treated post-transplant at a very renown transplant center and has lots of great advice for post-transplant treaters.
Let us know when you treat and some of your stats. It is always interesting to know how people are doing relative to this disease. You can get a lot of great support here!
As BThompson said I treated and reached SVR. I treated 3 times but the first 2 were for 1 year each with low dose ribavirin. My last TX was at full dose Pegasys (180 mcg) and 1000 mg ribavirin. I cleared at 12 weeks and treated for a total of 73 weeks. I stopped TX in June 2004 and have had undetectable Heptimax tests monthly since April 2003 (12 weeks into TX). Mike
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