viral loads vs phase

[glfsunset]

if my viral loads with hep c are at 25 mil three hundred sixty nine what phase would I be 1,2,3 I don't understand

[nygirl7]

Diane while sometimes liver damage can reverse it's not always 'fixable' just so you know that and don't a false ideal.  Unless you are re-biopsied and it is shown for certain - don't assume so. It's important to remain liver health conscience as possible as many have treated and not seen any regression at all.

I think she meant stage. Deb the only way to know that is to get the biopsy. It is important to find out how much damage you have so that you know if you need to treat and also if you need to treat really aggressively.

If you are talking about genotype that is important to know because some strains are harder to kill (usually) than others. But with this disease even knowing that doesn't always help.........it's a big gamble no matter what.

How high your viral load is important to know only when you are going to treat so you can see how much it has gone down at target weeks (week 4, 8, 12, 24). Preferably though you'd like to be UND at week 4 for optimal results and better chances of SVR. I was not UND at week 4 although I had a great first 4 week response........it kind of got stuck and then I was UND at week 24 so I had to extend to week 72.

Things like that are why we need to know VL.

[Diane12855]

Also, since you have a higher viral load, I thought it might reassure you to know that my beginning viral load was over 6 million but after 4 weeks of treatment it was down to 2 thousand. My biopsy showed I was grade 2 stage 2, which is fixable if I can kill this dragon.

So don't get too freaked out while waiting on all the tests. I know I thought I'd go nuts.

[Diane12855]

Viral load refers to the number of virons in your blood. Grade and stage refer to inflammation and fibrosis of the liver. I don't know what phase means. Somebody else will have to cover that one. Another number you see a lot of is genotype: 1,2,3,4 etc. and then there is also 1a, 1b.

It is quite confusing when you first start reading all of this, but after a while the brain just gets used to our new language and it is much easier.

[Bill1954]

Hi there,

I’m a little confused as well; but we can figure this out. When you refer to ‘phase 1,2,3’ could you be asking about the stage of liver fibrosis, or scarring that has been sustained?

If so, viral load doesn’t necessarily correlate with liver damage. For instance I was tested for viral load for years, and it was never more than 150,000; but, I had very significant fibrosis. Conversely, others have reported viral loads in excess of 50,000,000 with apparently very little damage.

Liver fibrosis is usually staged 0,1,2,3 and 4, with fully developed cirrhosis called stage 4 disease.

Does this help answer your question? If not, we’ll take a different tact and go from there.

Welcome to the discussion group, by the way,

--Bill