treatment side effects

[amyLHS]

I'm starting treatment w innerferon this week, oh nad the pills... anyway, can anyone tell me how bad the side effects are??

[willbb]

As all the others have said...side effects differ greatly with everyone...,I am in wk13 and so far mine have been very minimal. Wishing you all the best with it!

Good luck

WILL

[uncledudeness]

I just started treatment Friday, and I was waiting for all the sides to kick in. well it's been 4 days now and so far I mostly feel like I have a bad cold (flu-like symptoms). I am tired quite a bit and am wearing out a path to the bathroom. I know it's only been 4 days, but I am hoping that I can tolerate treatment. I did my share of worrying about the sides, as I'm sure we all do. The important thing is that you force yourself not to dwell on the negative aspects of treatment. Today I felt lousy and I came to the realization that the worse I felt, the better the meds are working to kill this scourge. one day at a time; one shot at a time; one pill at a time...until you beat it.

good luck and make sure you ask plenty of questions and do some research too. it helps to understand this disease.

my main concern now is that my platelets don't drop too bad.

geno 1A, VL 1mil, 87K platelets and hi enzymes and a will to win sums it up for me.

good luck

[meakea]

Welcome Amy.  

Some people get through treatment without much trouble from side effects and others have a fair amount of side effects.  As has been said above, everyone seems to be different in their body's reaction to the meds.

I did 48 weeks of treatment and I had a lot of the known side effects but not all at the same time.  The side effects came and went in waves.  My main issues with treatment were from the anemia caused by the treatment meds which made me weak and fatigued.  Some of the other sides were itching, hair loss, etc.  Not all sides effects happen to all people so don't worry about them (because they might not happen to you) but do be prepared to ask a lot of questions here (and also to your doctor) if you do start to experience side effects.  I worked all through treatment and it was like just putting one foot in front of the other day after day until treatment was over...and a lot of praying.  :)

The best thing you can do for yourself is to try to keep a positive attitude, a sense of humor and stick with us here...oh, and number one rule:  drink a lot of water!!

[can-do-man]

Welcome and glad to see you started your own thread, side effects are different for everyone, like Bill mine was not to bad, anemia, fatigue. Wishing you the best of luck, just hang in there.

can

[Bill1954]

Some of us don’t get particularly ill from the treatment meds, Amy. I treated for a few years, and most of my complaints were centered around fatigue; I could have slept for weeks at a time :o).

How long is your treatment duration; 24, 48 or more weeks?

What genotype HCV are you?

Welcome to the discussion group, by the way-

Bill