elderly diagnosed with hep c

[jnyhan]

Our 85yr old grandmother was just diagnosed with Hepatitis C virus.
so among the many questions I have perhaps if anyone has any thoughts...would be appreciated
-she suffered a bad fall 2yrs ago and had hip replacement surgery and since has had a difficult time recovering
-we've seen mood changes and cognitive impairment but thought it was somehow related to her post surgery
-wondering how she might have contracted the virus (she did receive a pint of blood a month ago) when the doctors said that she was severely anemic
-given her age is there safe treatment

many thanks in advance

[jnyhan]

many thanks for your comments...comforting to receive a few outside thoughts that can clear up my cloudy ones...

[nygirl7]

Honestly at 85 I don't think I would worry about doing treatment but she should be checked out by a good Heptologist to make sure it's not a matter of liver failure in any way. I agree she probably contracted this years ago, when sterilization of instruments (ie: dentists, doctor innoculations etc) was not as good as it is today.

There are PLENTY of people who have no idea where they got the disease with none of the obvious ways apparent - but yet they've never done IV drugs or anything so there is always a chance it could be something like this.

[FormerLoser]

Hi,

Sorry to here that. I agree with the first response completely but wanted to give my support. I would suggest taking her to hepatologist to run blood tests and do an ultrasound/biopsy to find out the damage. If she has a mild form and its not harming her I would leave it like that but be careful if she takes lots of meds because that puts a toll on liver

God bless yopu and your family.

N

[Trinity4]

It's highly unlikely she contracted the virus from her most recent blood transfusion.  She may have contracted it from a blood transfusion before they started testing donor blood at or around 1990.

Keeping it real here, Grandma may have experimented with IV drugs back in the day and that is one of the primary modes of transmission.

Most elderly who fall and break a hip or have hip replacement tend to recover slowly.

The cognitive issues are completely understandable for somone who is 85 years old and depression in some form is very common with the elderly.

I would not recommend antiviral therapy for anyone who is 85 years old and I don't think you would be able to find a doctor who will treat someone at that age.

Regardless of how long she has had the virus it appears she hasn't experienced any acute problems associated with hepc such as cirrhosis so as you can see from Grandma, people live with hepc for years and die with disease, not from it.

Trinity