It has taken 16 years but 5 days ago on August 23rd 2016 I finally started treatment for my long term Hepatitis C (genotype 1a) infection. I have been living with this virus since I was 20 years old. Amazingly that is now 32 years ago. I found out I was infected 16 years ago.
I want to share my day to day experience of the treatment and how it is making me feel in the hope others may find my information useful. I will post the outcome of the treatment, be it good or bad and along the way I am going to tell you a few things about me and of course also how as a young man I caught the virus way back when.
I am not going to delve to deep into what Hepatitis C is here in this post but basically it is a highly infectious virus carried in the blood that attacks the liver. Just a few years ago Hep C was not so easily curable as big pharma claim it is today. The treatment here in England was a combination of two main medications called pegylated interferon (a weekly injection) and ribavirin (a tablet). I know people that tried this regime of treatment & depending on the genotype of the virus they were infected with the treatment was lasting up to 12 months. From what I was told this treatment was absolutely horrendous, it had such awful side effects that I believe a large percentage of people were not even able to even complete the treatment. Add in to the fact the treatment had a low success rate, so when I was first diagnosed with this virus back in 1999 and offered this form of treatment I thought “no thanks, I will take my chance with the virus”. You see not all people with the virus will die from it and from what I was hearing about that old treatment I reckon that would have killed me or close to it. Therefore, I kindly declined the offer of that particular treatment & have lived a life with the virus since then.
Fast forward to 23rd August 2016. I am now 52 years old and I have started on a 60 day treatment of what is touted as wonder drugs. I am on a course of drugs known as Direct Acting Antivirals. The actual brand name of the drug is Harvoni. It is made by Gilead Sciences Ltd and is a combination of Ledipasvir and Sofosbuvir. Although it is a combination of two drugs it is actually one small orange coloured pill measuring about 25mm x 10mm.
I take one pill a day at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. I take it with water & after a small snack. This is my fifth day of treatment so thus far I have taken 4 pills. I am due to take my fifth pill today (Saturday 27th August) at 1 o’clock.
I was VERY nervous on Tuesday which was the first day I started the treatment. I was so nervous about the treatment that it was hard to put that first initial pill in my mouth & swallow. However, I need not have been so nervous because so far the side effects of the drugs on me are very minor indeed. I occasionally feel a little woosey which feels like a mild form of sea sickness but this comes and goes and passes quickly. My skin also feels a little itchy especially my scalp. My sleep pattern and appetite is good and thus far seems unaffected.
The goal of the treatment is the total eradication of the virus from my body. My doctor has told me that they expect to see no trace of the virus in my body at 4 weeks from start of treatment.
My first milestone will be a blood test at 2 weeks. This happens on 6th September 2016. If the drugs are working my viral load should be significantly lower than my last blood test which was done just a few days before I started the treatment. The viral load is a measure of viral particles in the blood and is the amount of virus in the bloodstream at any given time. Before I started this treatment my viral load was standing at 1,932,366.
So there you have it. I have outlined the basic information. I will post again in a few days where I will update on how it is going, how I am feeling and I will tell more about me and my life.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post.