viral replication

[roscoe1]

Does anyone know what causes the virus to replicate very quickly. I have always had a viral load of around 200,000 to 700,000. It is gone to 18mil and month later to 32mil. Alt and ast moderately raised but everything else well in the normal range. I can't figure it out, what could I be doing?

[Mr Liver]

Your body's immune systems may be doing a great job----perhaps too good in terms of provoking a viral response--and the virus may be responding to this immune pressure by stepping up replication. When immune pressure subsides viral replication rates can come down-- a paradox. There are some theories as to the exact nature behind this process, the most plausible one to me being the propensity of all things to attempt to achieve balance.
Mr Liver

[cathy77]

My viral load went from 39000 to 3.3 million in 2 months, I can only think that during the time I had a few drinks Christmas and just a few can be the only reason That I could think of perhaps it depressed the immune system.
Cathy77

[Bill1954]

Hey there;

I’m not sure you’re doing anything wrong; it may just be attributable to the vagaries of one’s immune system. From the Fibrosure results, it appears that you might have some time before treatment becomes critical; this should obviously be discussed with your doctor.  

A viral load in excess of 400,000 IU/mL is considered high; any advantages to management or treatment are apparently below that threshold. I’m personally unaware that very high viral loads are associated with severe disease progression (vs. moderately high).  What does your doctor have to say about this? Some studies DO show an advantage to low (<400,000 IU/mL) VL at the commencement of treatment.

The same old stuff applies; stay away from booze, try to achieve and maintain good weight management, and live a live healthy lifestyle, until it’s appropriate to undergo treatment.  

Be well—

Bill

[roscoe1]

Hi bill1954, no I never been on tx. I have had only fibrosure and it showed no fibrosis and minimal activity.  Platelets at 247,000 a month ago and all others normal besides alt and ast. Just trying to figure out why it jumped so much so fast. I get this test ran pretty regularly and this is the first time I have seen this since diagnosis 4 years ago. I have had 3 mri's in those 4 years all unremarkabe. The fellow that administered the test told me is has not changed since the first test. Thanks for any input.  R.S.

[Bill1954]

In other words, your viral load probably has less to do with rate of replication than the state of your immune response.  

[Bill1954]

Rate of viral replication is going to be more constant than the status of your immune system; viral loads can and do vary quite a bit from test to test. The degree of disease progression is gauged by the amount of liver damage, and not by viral load, however.

Have you undergone treatment for HCV yet? If so, what was the outcome? Liver damage per biopsy?

Bill