Update from Dr

[sally123684]

Hey everyone,  Follow up visit with Dr went great.  Blood work came back good.  My geno type is 1a and my viral load is 1.4 million.  Dr says we will know if meds are working at 12 weeks.  All in all my reaction has been good.  I guess I'm used to being tired so i've just been taking it easy.  Is this viral load high???  Dr says geno 1a is the hardest to treat but we are trying to stay optomistic.

They are also giving me the hep A and B vaciines.  This is a 3 shot deal.  The first one seemed to make me sick.  Anyone else had to go thru them?

oh yeah,  Talked to dr about milk thisle.  He says their is not enough reserch to say one way or another so for now Im staying off it.  really appreciate everyones input!!!  Love this site.

[Rockerforlife]

My doc mentioned to meit was ok to take milk thistle while on TX but i decided not too.Some do take other summpemets while on TX,i think Marcia was taking supplements and she went SVR so who knows?



The wise old owl lived in an oak;
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard:
Why can't we all be like that bird?
         Edward H. Richards

[Trish77]

I'd echo what the others are saying regarding a 4 week PCR.  I'd insist on it with your doctor.  Nowadays I'm surprised that more doctors are not ordering the 4 week PCR and seems to me an indication of knowledge and experience whether they order that 4 week PCR or not. I'd talk to him before you start treatment and see what he says.  



  

[becksta29]

i take milk thistle 3 times a wk,not everyday....cos i am on the tx.
before the tx i was taking it when ever i felt like it as long as i took what the bottle said to take.
My doc said milk thistle is ok on tx....and he also said there has been some research done and that the research is great...not sure if he meant studies done on tx patients,think he just meant in general... there has been studies to prove its very good for helping our liver.Your doc probably meant there is no research done on milk thistle whist we r on tx...my doc just said its been proven that people on milkthistle on tx do fine....but thats just 1 doc saying that,just stick with what ever your doc tells u...i live in australia and maybe things are different over here...but iv found that alot of docs over here are all starting to except milk thistle.
im in wk 22 and my ALTs- ASTs and all over LFTs r fine,so i seem to be doin ok on tx whilst taking small amounts of milk thistle....i was a bit worried about taking it too,thats why i dont take to much of it(thats my choice,my doc didnt say to take a low dose he said take whats recommended on the bottle)but i think it doesnt hurt at all IMO.
As for heb b abd a vacc...i had that done when i was first diagnosed too and i didnt get sick or feel funny from the vacc at all.Maybe the reason u r feeling aweful from the vacc is because u r also on the tx,my doc didnt want me to have any vaccines whilst on tx....but that was due to my low WBC.
good luck with ur tx.

[Kristina538]

Hey good luck for your tx Sally!!!   My specialist didn't want me to do milk thistle during tx because he said it could alter ALT/AST - although he was pretty much okay with any other supplement that I showed him.

[copyman]

Insist on a week 4 pcr test. This is perhaps the most important test for treatment decisions. Any doctor that does not order a 4 week pcr is old school and I would re-think treating with a doctor like that.
Have the blood drawn the day of your weekly shot but BEFORE the shot.

[newleaf09]

I got the vaccines before I was diagnosed and was not bothered by them, just annoyed at how long it took to build the immunity.  VL only has significance for tracking your progress.  They will be watching for VL to drop and how much of a drop is made will indicate how responsive you are to the therapy.  A lot of people do a PCR test at 4 weeks.  If you're lucky enough to be very responsive to interferon and the virus is cleared by 4 weeks, it's not only very encouraging for the patient but be a good decision making tool for later on in TX.

[Bill1954]

Hi Sally,

A viral load of 1.4 million is typical. The cut off for low viral load is <400,000; but very few patients will be this low. On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve had patient reported viral loads in excess of 75 million in here. It’s most important after treatment has commenced in order to gauge the efficacy of therapy.

Yeah, the majority of us received the HAV/HBV vaccines shortly after diagnosis, if we didn’t already have them. These shouldn’t make you ill; they’re designed to initiate antibody production only.

Best of luck to you in the future—

Bill