Rash - doc says stop riba

Well, most of my body is covered with this itchy, hive-like red rash.  Also an autoimmune skin disease, morphea, has flared up with a vengeance and is starting to get close to places not covered by clothing, like a shoulder and the back of my neck.  It can be very disfiguring if not dealt with aggressively.  So yesterday my hep doc phoned and said to put a hold on the riba for now.

At first that upset me, but then I figured that as a geno 2 who was UND at 4 weeks, I've now done 12 weeks of Peg-intron and ribavirin, which gives me an 80% chance of SVR.  24 weeks of both would give me a 90% chance.  I'm going to keep up the interferon for the duration, so maybe my chances will be somewhere in between, like 85%??  I sure hope that I remain UND.

Has anyone here just continued with interferon alone?  How did you do?

[goldyn]

so sorry about your rash but thank goodness your a geno 2, i bet you have a good chance, I hope you start feeling better soon....

[ladybug52]

Sorry about your rash and the morphea flaring up. I have just gotten really bad at scratching myself to death lately. Except for raw spots, there's nothing there to scratch. Just the invisible itch. I think that's good advice about researching more to make sure you are stopping the right drug. I think I'll do a little research myself...
Good luck, I bet you will be o.k. with 12 weeks! You have to pick your poisons, and something is not the right poison for your body.
Bug

[aquarius64]

sorry to hear about the rash! it must be very frustrating. i do not know anything about doing inf without riba, but i thought they both had to be done together to work. after being UND, i have no clue. i am sure someone here will have better info than me. i hope you remain UND and hope the rash improves!

[jmjm530]

Not sure about your specific issue, but I know that with psoriasis, interferon was more the culprit than ribavirin. You might therefore want to research this out and/or speak to both your treating doctor and a dermatologist. I agree with Mike that you appear to have a good chance of SVR even if you stop now, assuming that your week 4 test was a sensitive one.

-- Jim

[mikesimon]

I think you've got a very good chance of achieving SVR. Sometimes our bodies tell us when it's time to quit and we're wise to listen, especially when it's screaming at us. Good luck, Mike

[GoofyDad]

Reports are the riba don't do nuthin' without INF, so it wouldn't make sense to pop riba for longer than a week after your last INF shot. But the other way around, folks used to treat with just INF. So if you decide that it is the riba that's causing your skin to crawl, continuing with the INF could have benefit. On the other hand, some studies show no statistical advantage by continuing past wk 12 (or so) for GT 2 with RVR and taking weight based riba. Bottom line: Just about anything you choose seems to make sense - your in good shape!

[pigeonca]

Thanks everyone for the much-needed reassurance.  Sometimes I get so worried...