How is the virus killed?

[pcds]

How is it that the medication can kill millions of the virus in a very short time, yet can in the end not kill the remaining few hundred.  Are they resistant mutant viruses?  Just took my 12th shot last night.  Starting to get anxious.  My last test at 8 wks was 4800.  My start was 1,700,000.  One would think slam dunk for undect at 12 weeks.  But obviously that is not how it works.  I am ruminating.  Trying to tell myself not to worry about something that hasn't happened yet.  My plan is to stop tx if not undect at 12 weeks.  

[RobertBeWell]

"Hep C replicates really, really fast; like 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) copies per day if left unchallenged; pretty amazing, huh?"

I am constantly amazed at just what an amazing machine the human body is. Our poor immune systems have been working overtime, in many case, for years. And I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill, 60 hour overtime.

I'm talking the 168 hour overtime week.

God, I can't wait to give my immune system a break.

[banarep]

and I alwys thought that the interferon and riba waited around the corner and hit the viruses in the head with a night stick.

[pcds]

Great answer.  Thank you.

[spectda]

A lot of detail in that article. Perhaps they could put our blood through a dialysis type UV light machine to kill the virus. It's probably been tried already!

[Bill1954]

Viruses are strange things. We loosely use the term ‘kill the virus’ in here, and we all understand what the writer is trying to say. However, if we explore this a bit further, the term ‘disable’ might be a more apt expression. This article on the basic structure of virus is easier than most of its kind to understand, and explores whether a virus is actually a form of life, or as the author suggests, perhaps a ‘box of chemicals’.

Pretty fascinating basic biology, or at least I found it to be; it’s worth opening and browsing—

http://www.uvm.edu/~biology/Classes/011/alive.pdf


--Bill

[Bill1954]

I think what I was saying (or at least trying to say :o)) is that there are roughly 2 to 5 actual copies of virus per international unit (IU). As recently as five years ago, viral load was expressed as ‘copies/mL’ rather than IU/mL. There were several different ways of expressing this, with different labs reporting differently and much confusion resulted; they finally standardized this by changing to International Units. I used the ‘3.5’ as a rough average conversion from copies/mL to IU/mL.

I agree with Dave; as HCV replicates at enormously high rates, it doesn’t do a particularly good job of ‘spell checking’ itself as it spins off copies. This lack of fidelity results in a wide assortment of virus; some readily responsive to IFN therapy, and some rather resistant. IFN often incapacitates the ‘easy to kill’ really quickly, leaving the stubborn stuff left standing. Now, all that’s left is the resistant virus; and this now spins off copies of itself, all resistant.

Fortunately, as Dave also pointed out, I believe the virus tends to revert to its wild state eventually.

At least, this is my very rudimentary understanding. I don’t have any background in microbiology or chemistry, so I struggle along just like everyone else with this stuff.

Hep C replicates really, really fast; like 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) copies per day if left unchallenged; pretty amazing, huh? No wonder it makes errors at this frantic rate; what a way to survive, huh? And can you imagine the daily challenge to our immune response? All this leaves me so astonished….

Bill

[spectda]

I have the same question gals, especially since the boceprevir and telaprevir are known to create mutants that can last a couple of years and maybe longer. Obviously with a couple of hundred left I am hopeful but nervous.

I don't think that riba and interferon will do that. That's part of the reason people can retreat on the same soc drugs and change things like duration and strength and clear a second or third time. The virus naturally mutates, but most of the mutants die off or reverts back to the dominant "wild type virus" remains. You probably both know that already.

I sent bill a message asking the same thing. One of the things he told me which I really never thought about was that the viral load is expressed as an international unit in a ML of blood (according to bill there are 3.5 iu in a ml of blood). To know how much virus you have in your whole body you have to take the viral load, multiply it times how much blood you have in your body(about 5-7 liters), multiply that by 1000 to convert ml to liters, and multiply that by 3.5 iu per ml. After telling me this I realized how much of this virus is still in my blood.

My starting load:
2,650,000

2,650,000 x 3.5 = 9,275,000
9,275,000 x 6000 = 55,650,000,000
I started with more then 55 billion iu in my total blood

at 246 vl currently i still have 5,166,000 iu in my body

Scarey huh?

[Diane12855]

Good question. I thought we were a week apart, but I just took my 12th shot yesterday too. It was the last one in the box anyhow... they come 4 in a box... 4 x 3 =12 right? Gee, I question everything lately.

Anyhow... we'll have to wait for Bill1954 or merryBe to give us a good scientific answer to this one... or anybody else who knows details like that.

Hang in there!
Diane