Is Hepatitis c the Rocky Balboa of the viral kingdom?

[St. George]

I recently posted that my doctor called with my 17 week vrl result and I was informed that I was down to a wimpy 508 viral copies(I started with  a vrl of 37 million).  My question to everyone here is how can so few copies maintain themselves in the presence of the onslaught of these powerful drugs.  What mechanism do they uses to hang on?  NyGirl stated that her vrl stayed around 400 copies for months, which to me is weird because why cant the drugs just finish kicking ass. Any insight anyone?

[jmjm530]

It's still low, yes, but in reality you have 508,000 of them in your body, not 508, and that is one reason a *seemingly* small number can persist.

[St. George]

So, since my last test of 14,000 4 weeks ago  it has went up 508,000.  This wasnt the way it was explained by my nurse, she said 508 copies.

[jmjm530]

No, it hasn't gone up.

508 copies/ml (millileter) equals 508,000 copies in your entire body because you have about 1000 milliters of blood in you. Maybe someone can explain this better or check my math.

[NYgirl]

It's how we all say it I think...for example I say 411 but if you look on the test results it says next to it per m/l

So it's REALLY 411,000 not 411.

[St. George]

This was the Heptimax test which tests copies, down to 10 I beleive.

[jmjm530]

Here's another way to look at it.

4 weeks ago you had 14,000 copies/ml which equals 14,000,000 copies total in your blood.

Now you have 508 copies/ml which equals 508,000 copies total in your blood.