newly diagnosed

[sweetypie30]

i just got diagnosed with Hepatitis C, I feel like I have no appetite and feel so
alone.
Dont know how to deal with having no appetite and feeling tired all the time.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you....

[jazzy578]

Welcome to you,

I am new myself, having only contacted this board last week.  Hearing the news that we have Hep C can turn our entire world upside down. It know it did for me when I was diagnosed back in 2008.  I knew something was wrong with me because of my fatigue.  Very uncharacteristic for me.  There are a host of thoughts that pass through our minds along with various stages of acceptance.  Then comes the decision to treat and when to do so, finding a doctor that you mesh with, and organizing your life around the treatment schedule.  It can all be extremely daunting and depressing.  I have discovered that there are many that have already traveled this path and these persons have great advice as well as broad shoulders to lean on.  I hope you will use the kind, knowledgeable people on this site to ask questions to.  I have learned so much about Hep C from this site and people here have given me the courage I have been seeking to face this disease head on.

I start my treatment tomorrow.  Until last week, I was having a struggle facing this day.  But, after listening and reading the advice and thoughts of others, I now have the ability to fight the good fight to ride myself of this hideous disease.  Hang in there.  There is hope for you.  As you think of questions, post them and you will get answers that will help you.  People here really care...  I wish you the best on your journey to health.

Jazzy

[Bill1954]

Hi there,

Sometimes a recent diagnosis like this can cause situational depression… that might be responsible in part for how you feel. We can help with the feeling alone side of things; lots of us in here have been through this already, and can provide insight into how we dealt with it.

Can you tell us more about your diagnosis? Do you recall the tests used? Sometimes there is confusion about this disease; we’re you diagnosed with antibodies, or did they do follow up testing?

Welcome to the discussion group, by the way. If you have questions, please feel free to ask, and someone will try to help you if they can.

Take care—

Bill

[DD9th]

You have come to the right place.  There may not be a response right away sometimes, but the folks around here were very helpful to me.

I learned a lot from reading this board, and also on the Janis and Friends site, which you can get here:  http://www.janis7hepc.com/

I felt much like you, but thankfully I did have support of my family.  But it was overwhelming.  I felt guilty for doing whatever I had done to contract the disease (I know what I did....), I felt scared, and lonely, and sorry for myself.  

But, somehow I got through it, and now, just 3 weeks post treatment (tx), I find my side effects (sx) are diminishing daily, and I'm having more energy, no more headaches, and I feel I can start to enjoy life some.

My advice for anyone facing this would be:  Learn as much as you can about it.  For instance, what is the Genotype that you were diagnosed with? (this effects the type and length of treatment you might be facing).  

Be aware of the depression that affects most people once the treatment starts.  I'm usually pretty happy-go-lucky, but I found myself weeping at the drop of a hat, even uncontrollably when I was at work. This was just the first couple of weeks because I told my doctor about it and they prescribed me an anti-depressant, which took a week to kick in, but once it did, I felt much more stable.  I'm not one inclined to want to take anti-depressants, but boy was I glad I was on one, after the initial first weeks.

Then, for me, once on treatment, it really came down to one day at a time, one step in front of the other.  It was a very long winter (6 months of tx for my genotype), and somehow it is all now behind me.  The medication caused my mind to be in a fog, and in a way, I think that kind of helped get through this.  

Though that, along with the fatigue (oh, and the skin problems), I am very happy to see diminishing.

Everyone's case is different.  Some people don't experience bad effects at all.  I was very worried about hair loss (vanity, you  know), and found I didn't have a lot of that until towards the end, and then I would have to call it more like thinning hair (I had visions of baldness).... but then again, some people do experience more loss than I did.

Overall, I'm glad I did the treatment, I'm hopeful that in 6 months (post tx) I will get the good news that I am SVR (Sustained Virological ..... er, something), basically, it means the disease is gone, and it won't come back.

That is the goal we are all trying to reach here, or have reached, and if you ever need some moral support, or have questions, or doubts about your treatment or doctor, there are a lot of very knowledgable people here who will help.

Good luck, and try to keep your spirits up, and don't be too hard on yourself.

(as to the loss of appetite, I did have that somewhat, when I was on the medication, but I don't know if that is a symptom of HepC.  Usually there are not many symptoms, until you are close to end-stage of liver disease.  I'm hoping you are not there, and that the feelings you are experiencing are from another source.)