End of treatment reduction

[cpclinic]

Hello to such a wonderful support group. Has anyone heard of finishing EOT and being tapered off the drugs to lower side effects? Just curious.
Barb

[justme53]

Good luck to you too in tapering and for the all important SVR. Hope you're holding up ok.. It's one heckuva ride!

Pam

[ditzybabe]

Good Luck. Research supporting the tapering off is reported in : Hepatology. 1996 Jul ;24 TITLE : Improved sustained response following treatment of chronic hepatitis C by gradual reduction in the interferon dose.
AUTHORS : M L Shiffman, C M Hofmann, V A Luketic, A J Sanyal, M J Contos, A S Mills at Hepatology Section, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Va 23298, USA.

I'm tapering from 180  on interferon to 135 (two weeks) to 90 (two weeks). Tonight is the last one. Tapering the ribavirin too. It's not about symptom reduction. It's about helping a 72 week TX double it's success potential. This is my third time in interferon TX, second time with ribavirin. Anything to better the odds.

[cpclinic]

Thanks Marc,
It makes sense that you can't taper unless you're in a higher dosage like justme53 to drop to 180 and then 90. Glad to hear you're doing well.
Barb

[Marc1955]

Sorry. I got confused. I meant to reference justme53 in my last comment.

[Marc1955]

This is a fairly active topic on this board. If you search "tapering" you'll find a number of recent discussions. There are no scientific studies that suggest that tapering improves outcomes, although there are a number of folks here who believe in it. As to lowering side effects – you're not really supposed to have any side effects associated with ending treatment. The side effects comes from the treatment. They disappear as the treatment ends. Again, there are folks on this board who will tell pretty serious stories about having problems coming off treatment, but these are not the norm. I just finished treatment, stopped the drugs in one fell swoop and feel better and better as time passes. My only side effect is some constipation, but it's certainly not serious enough to justify tapering.

BTW, there is no off-the-shelf way to taper Interferon. It's not that easy to execute. It's interesting that cpclinic has a doc who wants to taper. That's the only time I've heard of that.

[justme53]

I have a ways to go yet, but I asked this very question. At forst I was told that I would stop at 72 weeks, but last month they said they would like to taper me off the interferon. I do 270 mcg now, so they will drop me to 180 mcg for 2 weeks post, then 90..then done. I really hate think of going beyond 72 weeks, but if it's easier in transition, so be it.

Has your Dr. suggested it? I'm still looking for more info too......Pam