liver enzymes

[timbo19506]

I recently had a second bloodtest to get a baseline count prior to treatment. I had been taking milk thistle for the last 3 months hoping that my enzyme count would decrease but actually went higher. Does anyone have any knowledge with this herb actually hurting the liver? I am a 47 years young, A 2B starting Pegysys in September...Thanks

[timbo19506]

thanks for your input..I'll let you know after my next profile

[Forseegood]

Hi, this is just my own experience. I took milk thistle for a few years, then it sort of turned on me for lack of a better way to put it. When I took it, I felt kind of real fatigued. Like I it just didn't agree with me. Well, I can be kind of neurotic sometimes, so I would try it again on a clean system, after I made sure that I had been having an okay day, so I couldn't blame it on anything else, like at 3pm or something, then I would feel not so good in about an hour. So I either developed an allergy to it, or gd knows what. Personally, I've read we can develop allergies or slightly bad reactions to things we might of been doing for a long time, that goes for food, etc. I think certain herbs are good for certain people, not everyone is going to have the same experience with them. We're all different, hence the different reactions to conventional treatment, etc. I use other herbs and they work fine for me. I've been taking herbs and supplements for many years, more years than I've known I've had hep c, so I can't totally account for the fact that I don't have high enzymes, never did, just slightly elevated, but "maybe" it's due to my regimen. I have read that certain herbs can have an opposite effect than what was intended, but these types of labs can fluctuate because of so many things, so it's hard to tell. With me it's been a lot of trial and error.Hope this helps.

[Forseegood]

I totally agree with you Cuteus, in terms of taking supplemtation and herbs for a "svr" for hep c. That is very rare. tx has got a much, much better rate of actually clearing the disease. But I never took supplements and herbs to clear the virus, I kinda knew it wouldn't do that. I take them to feel better till I do take tx. I stopped taking supplements and herbs under a doctors advice for almost 3 months last summer and I felt horrible, I was in a flare up, then I started back up on them and I felt much better. I take them for hep symptoms, and possibly to keep down inflammation. So I'm keeping on them till I do tx in the fall, in which case I'll cut back on a lot of them, just finding out which ones to keep on while i'm doing tx. As for the milk thistle, if "I" was taking it and I saw my enzymes were going up, I'd get off it and then test again in a month or so and see if they go down. In which case, I'd go off of it. I just had a freind the other day tell me that he had enzymes in the 300s and he started it and they went down to the 60s. So milk thistle does work for inflammtion for some people, not all. I take certain herbs that work like milk thistle, that agree with me a lot more. Take care

[cuteus]

the problem with supplements is that not everyone gets the same effect with them or not enough people to make it statistically signinficant. with the hep c tx, you get a significant number of people having a similar outcome(svr, lower vl) in enough numbers to rate its effectiveness. not so with supplements, too many anecdotes of different kinds and not enough uniform results.

[Laika]

The liver enzymes go up and down, and you can search in vain for a reason.  I did a lot of herbal stuff too for a couple of years, including milk thistle.  I don't think it hurts...everything I've heard is that it's ok to take it prior to treatment.  Some people say it's ok to take while treating (including my dr), but for me, it's enough to remember to take riba 2 X day.  I'm 58 yrs young, currently taking pegasys & will be done with it 8/12.  Yay!  You are very lucky to be 2b...all us 2b's are lucky.  When I feel like whining, I'm ever so grateful to be 2b.

Laika