To treat or not to treat, that is the question!

[truredhead]

I am so unsure about whether to treat the hep c with the interferon. I already received my first 3 months medicine from Roche. I have been reading so much about the side effects that is scares the heck out of me. All my blood tests are good so far as levels except the viral load is very high. I am a 1A geno, I do not drink and have been on methadone for 15 yrs. I have fibro and irritable bowel syndrome which seems to be better in last few months.My biopsy showed F1-F2, I am not sure when I aquired it, could have been a tattoo or former IV use. Just found out I had it year and half ago. Should I wait or treat? I just need some feedback I guess. My viral load was 24 million and that is the only bad thing I see on the blood tests. I know we addicts always expect the worse, but some of those sides never go away and I hate any mental probs starting, Its a wonder I am not goofy now! I sure you can tell how great I am at making decisions!

[Trish77]

You are in good company about having a sense of trepidation just before treatment!!  Alot of us feel that way.  I was very pumped about starting treatment and yet as it got closer, I started to feel like I'd be stepping onto an elevator, the doors would close behind me and I'd go "down" and get out somewhere .. wherever that would be as I had no idea what was ahead..and wouldn't be able to get back on that elevator to get out because it's an in for a penny in for a pound thing..and you give it your best go.  I mentioned to a friend that I was feeling some real nervousness about the whole thing and he said to me that I should get psyched up, not psyched out about it...that what I was about to embark on was a GOOD thing...and that thought helped me alot.  Helped me make an attitude switch...still nervous but not the overriding emotion...switched to warrior mode...lol  :)

Good luck to you.

Trish

[truredhead]

thks for the link on the methadone info!

[truredhead]

I have no intentions of wasting any medicine, just wanted to be sure when to treat, I plan to start as soon as I get my bladder put back in place. It should be a few weeks
longer only, They are working on the arrangements right now, I do appreciate the medicine. I would not have gotten it if I felt I was not going to treat. I am sure a lot of us get cold feet before the tx and I want to do what is best for me personally. Thank goodness with the hep, we can take care of other things before we treat, that is if things are not dire at the time.

[R Glass]

“ I am so unsure about whether to treat the hep c with the interferon. I already received my first 3 months medicine from Roche.”

This may have already been addressed. Did Roche assist you with getting your Meds? If they did (or an insurance company), will you get assistance if you back out and try later? 3 months of meds are expensive.

[Trish77]

Brent,

My girlfriend lost her leg below the knee in a motorcycle accident - she was hit by a drunk driver who pulled out from a parking lot and hit her broadside.  What I appreciated after that occurred was that she didn't then turn around and tell me or anyone that we should not ride motorcycles. Even if she thought that way, she kept it to herself because she had enough savvy to know that it would be her own emotional response to her experience and that it didn't necessarily apply to everyone because it happened to her.  

One's experience can invoke an emotional response but hopefully that doesn't cause someone to go around being unnecessarily alarmist.  My aunt died an early death from diabetes because she didn't take care of herself very well in earlier years and it caught up to her.  That does not mean that will happen to ALL people with diabetes and it would be wrong of me to go around suggesting that it will.  One of my girlfriend's sons has diabetes and does an admirable job of managing it.  It would be wrong of me to suggest to her and him that he'll die an early death because my aunt did.

So I would say it behooves us to be careful about unfairly representing the HCV experience such that we incorrectly suggest it will mirror our own experiences or those of a limited number of people who experienced the worst case scenario when the actual facts of the HCV experience statistically may be entirely different from what one person unfortunately experienced.

I keep your own experience in mind as a good example of careful monitoring required but would never suggest and nor would you that everyone will experience what you did.

Just saying.

Trish

[merryBe]

I am unfamiliar with high LDL helping hcv, in fact there are more than a few studies stating the opposite.

Could we please start another thread on this topic, as I'd be very interested in how you arrived at this view.

http://www.pnas.org/content/96/22/12766.full