Is untreated HCV a death sentence?

[pcds]

I have read many posts from people that say if untreated you wll die of complicatons of HCV.  That is not true.  Only 5% get liver cancer and it's hard to tell the progression of cirrohsis especially if your lifestyle is healthy.   I've had HCV for 40 yrs and only stopped etoh 2009.  Stage 0-1.  People are different.  I work in a hosptal ICU, 8 years and have seen 1 liver cancer from HCV and the patient was a heavy drinker.   All the HCV patients I see in the ICU with GI bleeds, cirr. are actively drinking heavily.  I am not saying this virus is a good thing to have, I am treating currently.  I just want people who want to wait for less toxic drugs not to bee so fearful if their liver can wait.

[belle19]

"can't we all just get along?"  try to have a great day today, i know i will.  love to all of you.  belle

[EyesofBlue55]

When I was first diagnosed 2 years ago ,did I think it was a death sentence-YES!!!It was then that I found this forum and got educated about my disease and the proper steps to take.
  After being told that I was a stage 0,I knew that I had time to wait for the newer drugs to come out.I think that Judy is just trying to say(especially to the newbies) is that if you dont have considerable damage that you could possibly wait for even newer drugs with little or no sides.
  I also learned that it you have better odds of clearing the virus if certain factors play in-one being little or no liver damage.And age.And I also think her decision to tx was "To get rid of the virus living inside her" I live with that thought every day too.
  Now  after hearing how some are having such a horrible time with the new drugs,I think I will wait some more,basing that on my stage.If it was 3-4 now that would be different.Just my personal opinion     cindy

[Bali05]

"Is untreated HCV a death sentence?"

Who wants to find out ?
Not me I can tell you that.

b
SVR

[desrt]

Give it the barest possibility that the patients that you see in ICU your particular hospital, in your particular area of your state may not be representative of cirrhotic HCV patients in general and are certainly not an accurate cross section of people posting to this board. There is certainly no 'justice' to this disease. There are some who didn't always lead a clean an sober lifestyle after infection, suffered minimal progression, had  easy tx and are SVR. There are others who did everything right, txd multiple times, and are still infected. Where is the justice in that?
I can somewhat understand the courage it took to re-tx after having such a hard time on your first attempt.
As for eureka, don't even try to compare the pain of watching a loved one suffer to the pain of tx.
I hope your tx is successful and things get better. Take care.

[eureka254]

No, I do not have hcv, I have never treated, and I am not sick.  Does that make what I have to say any less valid?

My husband struggled with the idea of doing treatment too, and I think he was pretty courageous to do 137 weeks of treatment.

He ended up in ICU a few times during treatment too, but that was far from what I call horrible, I've seen much much worse.  But of course, he wasn't in your ICU, because he doesn't drink, and you only see drinkers in your ICU.

I do not live the life of a person sick all the time from treatment, but my husband is living the life of a person dying from hcv.

As far as the post's meaning, I don't think I missed it, I think I was rather struck by it and it's rather obvious I wasn't the only one.  All the same, I hope that your treatment is able to get you to SVR so that you won't have to endure what folks like my husband and Hector and OH have had to live through -- folks who really understand what courageous means.

[pcds]

Are you treating?  Do you have HCV?  Do you live the life of a person sick all the time from Treatmemt?  You totally miss my posts meaning.  I struggled with the idea of treatment or not as many do.  I think I was pretty courageous to do this horrible task.  Not treating for many is not a death sentence, and if I'm not SVR after this I will be one of those people and I hope it's not a death sentence.