All oral trial failed (for me). On to rescue arm.

[adamben101]

Gilead all oral study with gs-5885, gs-9551, gs-9190, and Riba.  UND by day 7.  Breakthrough reported somewhere around the 6-8 week mark.  Yeah, it's a bummer.  So now I'm going into the rescue arm.  It's all the mentioned drugs without gs-9190 (Tegobuvir) plus PEG.  First shot is tomorrow.  Nervous as hell.  My doc thinks it's a better idea to stay on the polymerase inhibitors with PEG and Riba than to stop and go directly to Tela/Riba or Bocep/Riba.  Any opinions on that?  All comments and prayers welcome!  Wish me luck!

[adamben101]

Hey everyone.  wow, that's a lot of armchair quarterbacks...hehe.  I'm in a better mood tonight.  Kind of got freaked out by the whole mutations conversations.  Went in today and I did take about 15 questions in with me to my Hepa doc.  He was impressed with the questions and their logic.  However he made a few things clear.  Based on previous studies, mutations like the ones I'm experiencing are common with protease inhibitors without PEG.  He believes strongly that the Polymerase Inhibitors are much stronger.  Because we have found the outbreak quickly he believes we have a great chance of using PEG to kill those mutations.  Other studies have actually shown that while the mutations exist, they are relatively weak.  Without going through each of the questions I asked and his answers, he definitely knew his stuff and made me feel like adding PEG is the way to go.  It may not be 100% effective but it's the best thing going.  Hopefully the 1, 2 and 4 week VL tests show some very positive results.  Thanks again for everyone's comments.  Adam

[willbb]

Unfortunately Adam nor any other trial participants don't get to sit down and meet with the researchers(at least I never got to)..would be nice but they are too busy .........researching. We are left to chat with the nurses and doctors they employ..who often at this stage  unfortunately don't know that much more than anyone else when it comes to the complex subject of resistance profiles

In the meantime  some of us will participate in their experiments and  when they get it right   or at least unravel  some more of the mysteries in that regard we should all be in better positions.

Again ..good luck Adam,,hope this works out for you..
Will

[OdinLovesLife]

.. and perhaps Adam would get more useful information about his situation if he spares the busy doctors the debate on whether this forum contains armchair medicine or not. I think it is without question armchair medicine but that doesn't mean it has no value.

If I read the thread correctly there seems to be a suggestion that the researchers were deliberately trying to develop a resistence scenario for study purposes. Despite all my cencerns about the pharmaceutical industry being the primary drivers of research, I would still think that they were trying to find out how to overcome the resistence problem rather than creating it. Anyway, a comment here and there on the medical ethics applied to clinical trials might also be of interest to all of us.

More than anything though, if Adam gets some answers from the doctors conducting the trial he can relax a bit about his situation and have more information to make a decision about how to proceed. If he doesn't, we can all get really angry, kick up a storm, and warn others to be careful with Gilead trials in the future. I think he will get good answers though.

[OdinLovesLife]

I wouldn't like to comment on the advice given but I would sure like to hear what the researchers have to say about drug resistence profiles. Which ones have higher or lower resistence barriers and their reasoning behind various combinations.

[willbb]

I agree .. downloading the " excellent "armchair advice " you got here would  be good for the doctors perusal.
Possibility they would  be interested in something that the many knowledgeable members here  observed.
Seems to happen all the time when they are presented with such...

Good luck Adam...

[OdinLovesLife]

Downloading the thread and asking the researchers for advice sounds like a very good idea to me. Then Adam can tell us the response. It could be really interesting. What a great idea Curious.

Adam. I hope you are doing alright. I am sure everyone here is wishing the best for you.