Aa
help
i found a web site for a chinese herb that said it was cureing chinese people of hepititis c but now i cant find it does any body know what is the website ,,,would really like to find more out.. have had it for 20 years tryed interfiron hated it the herb started with a v ........hopefull???
I was not dx until I was in to cirrhosis. As I waited to get on tx I tried "natural supplements" thought it was helping until my vl went from 7M to 12M, that told me it wasn't doing anything.
I wasted a lot of money trying to help myself while waiting for Incivek, it made no difference. Everyone is different, perhaps some of these people were the lucky ones who's body cured them? I believe that is in the first year though someone else could come along and give better information
I wish all of you the best
I wasted a lot of money trying to help myself while waiting for Incivek, it made no difference. Everyone is different, perhaps some of these people were the lucky ones who's body cured them? I believe that is in the first year though someone else could come along and give better information
I wish all of you the best
We always appreciate ones own experinces.. Glad yours is to date is ........well "unknown "from what I read.
good luck...
Will
good luck...
Will
If I was worried about it I would have taken treatments 16 years ago.
Again, I'm not advocating anyone not taking treatments, only passing along my experience.
Again, I'm not advocating anyone not taking treatments, only passing along my experience.
It is true what wilbb says.
I have a friend who was working closely with ayurvedic practitioners and really doing everything right. She went for a decade and felt great. Recently had a biopsy and is cirrhotic.
Hep. C cannot be held back by non conventional medicine. I have always been a proponent of alternative medicine and natural healing and I still stand by it for many issues, but not HCV.
I recommend at the very least that you monitor your liver, work with a liver specialist and see how it is progressing. Soon the treatment available to you will be less toxic and painless.
I have a friend who was working closely with ayurvedic practitioners and really doing everything right. She went for a decade and felt great. Recently had a biopsy and is cirrhotic.
Hep. C cannot be held back by non conventional medicine. I have always been a proponent of alternative medicine and natural healing and I still stand by it for many issues, but not HCV.
I recommend at the very least that you monitor your liver, work with a liver specialist and see how it is progressing. Soon the treatment available to you will be less toxic and painless.
I usually don't feel to bad at all, am not jaundiced, don't experience any liver discomfort, and other than a little fatigue am doing alright so far.
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Many chirrotics have very few symptoms ,if any until the liver starts to de -compensate and then it is too late to treat your HCV.
Point being ,,how you feel really has no bearing on how much damage the HCV is doing to your liver ..
Using this as a guide to ascertain when one should consider treatment can be a dangerous aprroach for some...
Best to you....
Will
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Many chirrotics have very few symptoms ,if any until the liver starts to de -compensate and then it is too late to treat your HCV.
Point being ,,how you feel really has no bearing on how much damage the HCV is doing to your liver ..
Using this as a guide to ascertain when one should consider treatment can be a dangerous aprroach for some...
Best to you....
Will
I was diagnosed with Hep C, type 3a if I remember correctly, 16 years ago and decided against taking treatments. I live alone and didn't think I could handle it on my own or want to take something that made me feel any worse than I did already.
I stopped drinking and try to eat healthy and take care of myself but other than that it's the only treatment I've ever been on. I tried Milk Thistle and it seemed to make my liver hurt so I stopped using it.
I usually don't feel to bad at all, am not jaundiced, don't experience any liver discomfort, and other than a little fatigue am doing alright so far.
I'm not advocating not taking treatment, just passing along my experience.
I stopped drinking and try to eat healthy and take care of myself but other than that it's the only treatment I've ever been on. I tried Milk Thistle and it seemed to make my liver hurt so I stopped using it.
I usually don't feel to bad at all, am not jaundiced, don't experience any liver discomfort, and other than a little fatigue am doing alright so far.
I'm not advocating not taking treatment, just passing along my experience.
Milk Thistle No Help in Tough Hep C Cases
By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: July 17, 2012
Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston
.Explain that milk thistle at two different doses performed no better than placebo in reducing aspartate aminotransferase -- the primary outcome of a randomized trial in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection refractory to interferon.
•Note that there was no difference among groups in HCV RNA levels or quality of life measures
Silymarin, a milk thistle extract, probably will not be of much help to patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) who have already failed interferon therapy, researchers found.
In a randomized, controlled trial, there were no differences in improvements in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels between two doses of silymarin -- often used as an alternative therapy -- and placebo in these hard-to-treat patients, Michael Fried, MD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported in the July 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Currently, standard therapy for HCV involves a basic regimen of peginterferon and ribavirin, now buffered by two newer protease inhibitors. Still, a large proportion of patients don't respond to these therapies, and many others can't be treated with them because of medical comorbidities, the researchers said.
Patients often turn to alternative therapies such as silymarin in hopes of some added benefit. According to some estimates, about a third of HCV and cirrhosis patients report using the milk thistle extract for their disease -- but studies have yielded inconsistent results regarding its benefit.
So Fried and colleagues conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial at four medical centers in the U.S., totaling 154 patients with chronic HCV who'd already failed interferon therapy. Just over half (56%) had never used milk thistle before.
Patients were enrolled between May 2008 and May 2010, with last follow-up in May 2011. The median age was 54, almost three-quarters (71%) of patients were male, and the median body mass index (BMI) was 29. Most patients (91%) had HCV genotype 1 infection.
They were randomly assigned to placebo or one of two doses of silymarin (420 mg or 700 mg) three times a day for 24 weeks. The primary outcome was a serum ALT of 45 U/L or less, or under 65 U/L provided that was at least a 50% drop from baseline values.
By study end, two participants from each treatment group met the primary outcome measure -- as did two patients in the placebo group.
The mean decline in serum ALT didn't differ significantly across the groups, either:
•-4.3 U/L for placebo
•-14.4 U/L for 420 mg silymarin
•-11.3 U/L for 700 mg silymarin
Nor were there any significant differences in HCV RNA levels or in quality-of-life measures, the researchers reported.
Adverse events were similar across all groups, with the most frequent being gastrointestinal symptoms, occurring in 12% of both silymarin groups compared with 5% of those on placebo.
The percentage of patients with serious adverse events was numerically higher in the silymarin groups, but Fried and colleagues noted that the power to detect differences was limited by the small number of patients in each group.
They concluded that oral silymarin "used at higher than customary doses did not significantly alter biochemical or virological markers of disease activity in patients with chronic HCV infection who had prior treatment with IFN-based regimens."
By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: July 17, 2012
Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston
.Explain that milk thistle at two different doses performed no better than placebo in reducing aspartate aminotransferase -- the primary outcome of a randomized trial in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection refractory to interferon.
•Note that there was no difference among groups in HCV RNA levels or quality of life measures
Silymarin, a milk thistle extract, probably will not be of much help to patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) who have already failed interferon therapy, researchers found.
In a randomized, controlled trial, there were no differences in improvements in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels between two doses of silymarin -- often used as an alternative therapy -- and placebo in these hard-to-treat patients, Michael Fried, MD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported in the July 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Currently, standard therapy for HCV involves a basic regimen of peginterferon and ribavirin, now buffered by two newer protease inhibitors. Still, a large proportion of patients don't respond to these therapies, and many others can't be treated with them because of medical comorbidities, the researchers said.
Patients often turn to alternative therapies such as silymarin in hopes of some added benefit. According to some estimates, about a third of HCV and cirrhosis patients report using the milk thistle extract for their disease -- but studies have yielded inconsistent results regarding its benefit.
So Fried and colleagues conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial at four medical centers in the U.S., totaling 154 patients with chronic HCV who'd already failed interferon therapy. Just over half (56%) had never used milk thistle before.
Patients were enrolled between May 2008 and May 2010, with last follow-up in May 2011. The median age was 54, almost three-quarters (71%) of patients were male, and the median body mass index (BMI) was 29. Most patients (91%) had HCV genotype 1 infection.
They were randomly assigned to placebo or one of two doses of silymarin (420 mg or 700 mg) three times a day for 24 weeks. The primary outcome was a serum ALT of 45 U/L or less, or under 65 U/L provided that was at least a 50% drop from baseline values.
By study end, two participants from each treatment group met the primary outcome measure -- as did two patients in the placebo group.
The mean decline in serum ALT didn't differ significantly across the groups, either:
•-4.3 U/L for placebo
•-14.4 U/L for 420 mg silymarin
•-11.3 U/L for 700 mg silymarin
Nor were there any significant differences in HCV RNA levels or in quality-of-life measures, the researchers reported.
Adverse events were similar across all groups, with the most frequent being gastrointestinal symptoms, occurring in 12% of both silymarin groups compared with 5% of those on placebo.
The percentage of patients with serious adverse events was numerically higher in the silymarin groups, but Fried and colleagues noted that the power to detect differences was limited by the small number of patients in each group.
They concluded that oral silymarin "used at higher than customary doses did not significantly alter biochemical or virological markers of disease activity in patients with chronic HCV infection who had prior treatment with IFN-based regimens."
I completely agree with you. For ten years I took Milk Thistle daily - quite a bit of it. And I thought I was somehow keeping the monster at bay. I used it instead of treatment for "getting better" ~ well, it didn't turn out that way at all. Not saying it didn't help; I'll never know that. It didn't hurt for sure. But I honestly believed I was protecting my HepC from progressing. Ha. Wrong. False sense of security - yes rivil. I start treatment soon so not taking it anymore.
I think this is an outdated post but I will put in my 2 cents anyway. It is true that there is no herb that will eradicate the virus. While a recent study shows Milk Thistle to do nothing, several other studies have shown it to be a good support for the liver for people not in treatment. Having said that I believe that the real danger of using the good herbs (the ones fairly documented to be a liver support) is that folks who use it instead of treatment think that they are getting better, but the virus is a monster and the herbs that generally are known to be helpful to ppl not under attack cannot prevent this monster from destroying one's liver over time. It gives a false sense of security.
Thankfully, there will be easier and less savage treatment meds coming our way.
Thankfully, there will be easier and less savage treatment meds coming our way.
there are examples of holistic remedies that will keep your viral load very low but cannot eradicate the virus. and liver damage is not related to the viral load. a low vl can damage the liver just as efficiently as a high vl
Milk thistle will not cure hepatitis C. In fact it's been proven that it does nothin really at all.
all i can say is that i was diagnosed with hep c 17yrs, i started taking milk thistle tablets everyday for just over 12months and went to have bloods as was about to start interfon and to my GP and my local drug and alcohol centre,i had got rid of the virus.My GP and atods clinic kept asking what i had done and the only thing was milk thistle.I've always had a healthy lifestyle re:food and exercise.You can only try there is no promise to anything in this world,don't be discouraged by others i can only tell you what happened to me
NOTHING cures hepc except the combo treatment of interferon and ribavirin. Unfortunately some bast*rds do not care and just want to make money and will use and abuse sick and dying people without regard. You will be wasting your money if you buy any of those things. Believe me - if there was a natural cure none of us would have gone through treatment...it's just not possible.
nice to see there are people out there that care for others i am tryying to find a more natural cure and not drugs that are man made a want somthing that is going to CURE me so i can spread the word to more sufferers... brita
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