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Tag: hep C

  • Taming the Emotions That Come With Hepatitis C

    Taming the Emotions That Come With Hepatitis C

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    You have hepatitis C, a disease caused by a virus that’s contagious and attacks the liver. Maybe you know how you got it. Maybe you don’t.

    Whatever the case, the virus could be just part of the problem. Now that the doctor has told you that you have hep C, get ready to battle a range of head-spinning emotions that often can be as difficult to deal with as the virus itself.

    There are ways to calm your nerves and ease your mind.

    What You’re Facing

    Fear and anxiety: Most people with hepatitis C don’t have any symptoms. Even if you’ve had it for years, you may not have the fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and other things that some folks with the virus have.

    Still, doctors will tell you that hepatitis C is a serious disease that can cause lasting damage to the liver, including cancer and a scarring of the liver (cirrhosis). Hepatitis C is, in a word, scary.

    “I think fear is probably the first thing: ‘What does it mean?’ ” says Lucinda K. Porter, RN, author of two books about her experience with hep C.

    “If you don’t know anything about hepatitis C, and you go on the Internet — which a lot of people seem to go to before they go to their physicians — you might see a full variety of outcomes, including death. Or see that this is an infectious disease and get the fear you might infect someone else. That’s a huge fear.”

    The fears keep coming:

    • Is it going to be debilitating?
    • Can you infect someone else?
    • Will you be able to work?
    • How are you going to pay for your treatment?
    • How are you going to take care of your family?
    • How are you going to pay the mortgage?

    “Once you learn more, you find out that hep C doesn’t work like that,” says Porter, who works as a hepatitis C advocate, writing for hepmag.com and hcvadvocate.org. “If you find out about it in an early stage and get some good, solid information, you find out that those fears don’t usually get realized.”

    Remember: In many cases, the medicines that your doctor prescribes can pretty much wipe the virus out of your body.

    “There is nothing to be afraid of. No matter how you got the infection, now we have a group of different, good therapies that can get rid of this infection,” says Victor Machicao, MD, a gastroenterologist with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth-Houston.

    “I usually tell [people] there’s a good chance that, you start taking the treatments, you’re going to start feeling better, and by the time that we complete the therapy, you’re going to feel almost like a new person.”

    Embarrassment and shame: Hepatitis C gets spread through exposure to an infected person’s blood. That’s the only way. Often, that’s how intravenous drug users, sharing needles, spread the virus. Sometimes, it gets passed down through high-risk sex. Before 1992, when blood wasn’t screened for hepatitis C in the U.S., it often was passed along through transfusions and organ transplants, too.

    Some of those activities — drug use and high-risk sex, especially — are what many people associate with hepatitis C. That thinking creates a stigma that makes people who have the disease not want to tell others about it.

    “So many of [the people I treat] are those baby boomers who did have a brief period of experimentation with drug use. Or maybe they did use drugs for a year or two of their adolescence. But now, that’s like 30 years ago,” says Andrew Muir, MD, a hepatologist who is chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, NC.

    “Often, they’re not married to somebody that they knew back then … it’s embarrassing, then you’re worried about what that person is going to think of you, and then when you realize that there may be a chance that you’ve passed on the virus through sex. … All these things are spiraling around in their heads.”

    Guilt: “There’s a lot of guilt, especially in someone who has a remote history of IV drug use, or got a tattoo at an unregulated parlor, or had a high-risk sexual encounter,” says Nancy Reau, MD, section chief of hepatology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

    People feel guilty about the possibility that they’ve infected others unknowingly. They feel guilty about putting loved ones in a situation that is often financially and emotionally costly. Sometimes, it can be too much for a person to handle.

    Regret: People with the disease often beat themselves up for not making better choices when they contracted the virus.

    “At that point, I tell every single one of my [folks] that there’s not a single one of us that wouldn’t go back and change a decision that we’ve made,” Reau says. “To some extent, looking back isn’t going to help us. We have to look forward.”

    Anger: “Anger is not an uncommon one. Anger is one of those emotions that make us feel like we’re empowered,” says Porter, who got hepatitis C in 1988 through a blood transfusion.

    For some, it comes from the fact that they had nothing to do with what gave them the virus.

    “I didn’t react with anger because in my case, that blood transfusion saved my life. But other people … can feel quite angry, and they feel quite victimized by that. I find [this] one is probably the hardest to address. Sometimes I just acknowledge that they feel angry.”

    Depression: The virus, the symptoms that may accompany it, all the emotions — it can be difficult to handle.

    Muir says a common scenario, in his experience, is a drug user who addresses the problem of addiction, goes in for treatment, and just as things start looking better, finds out they have hepatitis C.

    “I find a lot of them are really down on themselves: ‘I’m a bad person, I did this, I’m being punished for it.’ We really need to try to change the way they feel about that,” Muir says.

    “I was a mess. I felt dirty. I was hard on myself,” says Stella Armstrong, a Las Vegas office manager who got the virus through drug use. Armstrong is now virus-free and is a hepatitis C advocate and member of the National Patient Advisory Committee for the American Liver Foundation. “I had to seek counseling. I had to see a psychiatrist. I was taking depression and anxiety medicine.”

    How to Get Help

    Talk to your medical team. Meet with your doctor and anyone else you might need (a hepatologist or pharmacist, for example). Get a plan. Follow treatment.

    “You start there. Always,” Porter says.

    Don’t underestimate the power of feeling physically better. It’s good for your mind, too.

    Once again, the virus can disappear in many of those who have hepatitis C.

    “People are surprised. They ask you, ‘Doctor, did you mean ‘cure’?” Machicao says. “They come to the office and say, ‘Doctor, that means I don’t have the infection anymore?’ I tell them, ‘For practical purposes, you’re cured.’ They are in total disbelief. It is amazing.”

    “The success of being cured of hepatitis C is really powerful,” says Muir.

    If you feel depression or anxiety, the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that you talk to your primary doctor or go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. Depression is a real illness and, even in the most severe cases, it’s treatable with medication or other means.

    Get educated. Find trusted sites online. Ask your doctor questions. Know what the virus is all about. Separate fact from fiction.

    “Education is how we start breaking down the stereotypes. How we find out we don’t need to be afraid anymore,” Porter says. “It can release the chains of anger.”

    Find some support. It can help to talk with other people who have been through what you have. Your doctor can point you toward online groups filled with people who are going through the same process. In some places, you can meet with people in person. Social services through government agencies or hospitals can help, too.

    “When you start to see other people who have a history of drug use, that regret and shame starts to diminish. ‘OK. I’m not a bad person. I can deal with this,’ ” Porter says.

    “I’ve always been open and have discussed my addiction with drugs. I think it’s the best thing. We only stay as sick as our secrets,” Armstrong says. “It was better for me to share my story. It’s still the same thing. It’s still hepatitis C, and we have to get through it.”

    Lean on family, friends, clergy, whomever it takes. Whether it’s someone else who has been through hepatitis C, or a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or your best friend — even if it’s a complete stranger — sometimes you just need a shoulder or a sympathetic ear. Search them out. Use them.

    “No matter how much positive you can hear about it, you still have to go home, you still have to be at a point by yourself, thinking these bad thoughts and you’re worried and you’re scared and you’re scared of the unknown,” Armstrong says. “Those are the times you have to call somebody and talk to them.”

    Take care of yourself. Once you get your medical plan in place, once you have your support in line, once you’re educated and know what you’re facing, taking a little “me” time is in order.

    “Having a chronic illness is hard,” Reau says. “Start by looking at the things you can change easily.”

    Eat well. Exercise. Get your sleep. Some people like to meditate. Nap if you need to nap. Make sure you’re around people you like. Enjoy a good book or a movie. All these can help you deal with the stress and emotions of hepatitis C.

    “Even at my lowest point and when I was feeling really sick, you just gotta keep moving. You have no other choice,” Armstrong says. “You have to keep moving forward and treating yourself well.”

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  • Hep C: Should You Share Your Diagnosis?

    Hep C: Should You Share Your Diagnosis?

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    Patient advocate Rick Nash sometimes wears a T-shirt that reads, “My pre-existing condition is hepatitis C.” (It is also known as hep C or HCV.) He uses it to jumpstart conversations about the disease.

    Nash thinks frank talk can help debunk myths and ease the stigma around hep C. But not everyone is ready or able to be so open. Whether to talk about your hep C diagnosis or not is up to you.

    If you want to tell others about your status, there are some tactics that could help make the conversation go better.

    Talking to an Intimate Partner

    It’s important to be patient and open to any questions your partner may have. It’s likely they’ll want to know how you got hep C and whether they could have it too.

    Such questions are natural. But often, they’re tough to answer.

    Paul Bolter, community outreach and education manager at the American Liver Foundation in New York, explains why.

    “There’s still a lot of stigma and shame around the disease. The first thing people think of is drug use or sexual transmission,” he says.

    Even Nash writes that talking about hep C can feel like “you’re revealing a deadly secret.”

    To get over the hurdles:

    Explain that hep C is a virus that spreads through contact with an infected person’s blood. IV drug use is one way, but there are others. They include:

    • Needle stick
    • Blood transfusion
    • Organ transplant before 1992

    Tattoo or body piercing equipment that’s not sterile can cause it too. Some people, like Nash, get the infection at birth.

    Tell them hep C rarely spreads through sex. It’s a little more likely if you have rough sex, anal sex, or sex during an outbreak of a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

    Discuss safer sex options, such as using a condom if you make love during a woman’s period or have sex that can cause bleeding.

    Encourage your partner to get tested. Angelica Bedrosian, MSW, a prevention and outreach coordinator at the Hepatitis Education Project (HEP) in Seattle, says most adults should get a hep C test at least once. Anyone who injects drugs should have a test every 6 months, about the time it takes to build up antibodies to the virus.

    “[Make sure they know] the test is simple and hep C is curable,” she says.

    Talking to Your Family

    Bedrosian says you don’t have to disclose your hep C status to your family unless you want to.

    She explains that on its own, living with someone who has hep C isn’t risky. You just need to take a few precautions. Don’t share personal items that might have blood on them, like razors, toothbrushes, and nail clippers. If you live with children, store these items out of reach.

    If you do decide to talk to your family:

    Explain that hep C virus spreads in different ways. You don’t have to say how you got it.

    Assure your family they can’t catch hep C from you, even if you hug, kiss, or share food or utensils.

    Tell them that hep C is curable. If caught at an early stage, hep C is curable about 98% of the time, says Robert Brown Jr., MD, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at New York’s Weill Cornell Department of Medicine.

    Don’t be afraid to ask for your family’s love and support, as well.

    Hep C Communication Among Minorities

    African Americans and some native peoples have higher rates of hepatitis C than other groups. Yet too few know about the disease or get tested for it.

    Brown says there are several reasons for this.

    “Access to care is less and trust in the medical system is less,” he says. “Stigma is [also] a key problem. We need to reduce stigma to eliminate barriers to care.”

    In Brown’s view, “The solution is to have less stigma and then more people could talk about it.” This is the reverse of Nash’s belief that more talk leads to less stigma.

    Bedrosian falls somewhere in between. She thinks it works best if people learn how to talk about hep C. She points to HEP’s outreach programs. They include a peer-training model that describes how hep C spreads, how to prevent it, and how to educate others.

    “This is how educational messages are best received, and how taboo is dismantled little by little,” she says.

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  • How to Be Smart About Sex and Hep C

    How to Be Smart About Sex and Hep C

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    Should you tell your partner you have hep C? What do you say? And how do you have a safe love life?

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  • Caring for Your Mental Health When You Have Hepatitis C

    Caring for Your Mental Health When You Have Hepatitis C

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    A hepatitis C diagnosis often comes with more than just infection. There can be a mental toll, too. When you have it, you may fear what others think of you, or you may deal with negative reactions to your diagnosis. This stress can lead to mental health issues. In fact, one-third of people with hepatitis C have depression.

    But there’s hope. You can manage and even cure hepatitis C with today’s treatment options. And alongside these treatments, you can find support that will improve your mental stress.

    Understanding the Stigma

    Like many health conditions, hepatitis C isn’t well-understood by the public, which leads to stereotyping and assumption.

    “There are times when hep C is more prevalent in the news because of a problem like the opioid crisis, and as a result, when the average person hears someone has hep C, they automatically think, ‘Oh, that’s a substance abuser,’” says Wendy Tayer, PhD, a UC San Diego Health clinical psychologist who specializes in chronic illness treatment.

    Though the main way people get hepatitis C is through sharing needles during illegal drug use, there are many other ways to get it, too. These include blood transfusions, organ transplants, tattoos or piercings with an infected tool, or exposure in a health care setting.

    Even if others know how you got your infection, another common reaction is fear that they’ll catch it from you. When retired nurse Laurie Smith, 73, contracted hepatitis C as a result of an accidental needle stick at work, some members of her family kept their distance.

    “I was asked not to eat off of plates or drink out of glasses at some family gatherings” she says. “Even 6 months after I was cleared of the infection, certain family members were still wary of me.”

    But hepatitis C isn’t like a cold or the flu. You won’t get it just from being around someone who has it, or from drinking and eating after them. You can only get it if infected blood enters your bloodstream. Even having sex with someone who has hepatitis C comes with a very low risk of infection.

    Advocating for Yourself

    Who you talk to about your infection is up to you. But when you do decide to have a conversation, it’s a good idea to have your facts straight.

    “I’m a big proponent of having the patient become an advocate and an expert in their own condition and then educating their support system about the condition,” says Tayer.

    Some of the information you can have at the ready:

    • Hep C is curable.
    • It often doesn’t cause any symptoms.
    • The risk of passing it on to others is very low.

    Even with facts, you can’t control others’ reactions. Part of safeguarding your mental health is learning to focus on yourself and understanding that’s the only person you can change.

    “Most of my family was very understanding, but others really had a problem with it,” says Smith. “Even after showing my paperwork that said I was cured, it took a good 6 months for some of them to come around to me.”

    Finding Support

    Studies show the anger, depression, and anxiety that often come with a hep C diagnosis are often a barrier to reaching out to others for support. But caring for your mental health isn’t just important emotionally; it can also make a difference in your treatment outcome.

    “People who have a good support system in place are much more likely to comply with the full treatment regimen,” says Tayer.

    Some ways to boost your mental wellness include:

    • Connect to others with hep C. Hep C isn’t rare. You can join online and in-person groups to talk about life with hep C. “There are people with hep C who have developed organizations and websites to share resources and ask for advice, such as Life Beyond Hep C, I Help C, and The Mighty, which is a health care consortium of like-minded people dealing with health challenges,” says Tayer.
    • Consider counseling. Regular sessions with a trained therapist will give you tools to use when you’re struggling with your mood. “There is really good help out there,” says Tayer. “And with the advent of telehealth, your odds are increased for finding a provider somewhere in your state who can help.”
    • Look after your overall health. Quality sleep, good nutrition, and regular exercise are all important for general wellness and help manage symptoms of depression and anxiety. You can also use other health professionals like dietitians, physical therapists, or pain management specialists, depending on what your symptoms are.
    • Use solid resources. Sites like the American Liver Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the CDC are good sources of information about hep C. “Stick to verified websites that are science-based with medical research behind them,” says Tayer. “That way, you’ll know what to expect with symptoms, the clinical picture, treatment, and how you’ll need to take care of yourself.”

     

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  • Taming the Emotions That Come With Hepatitis C

    Taming the Emotions That Come With Hepatitis C

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    You have hepatitis C, a disease caused by a virus that’s contagious and attacks the liver. Maybe you know how you got it. Maybe you don’t.

    Whatever the case, the virus could be just part of the problem. Now that the doctor has told you that you have hep C, get ready to battle a range of head-spinning emotions that often can be as difficult to deal with as the virus itself.

    There are ways to calm your nerves and ease your mind.

    What You’re Facing

    Fear and anxiety: Most people with hepatitis C don’t have any symptoms. Even if you’ve had it for years, you may not have the fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and other things that some folks with the virus have.

    Still, doctors will tell you that hepatitis C is a serious disease that can cause lasting damage to the liver, including cancer and a scarring of the liver (cirrhosis). Hepatitis C is, in a word, scary.

    “I think fear is probably the first thing: ‘What does it mean?’ ” says Lucinda K. Porter, RN, author of two books about her experience with hep C.

    “If you don’t know anything about hepatitis C, and you go on the Internet — which a lot of people seem to go to before they go to their physicians — you might see a full variety of outcomes, including death. Or see that this is an infectious disease and get the fear you might infect someone else. That’s a huge fear.”

    The fears keep coming:

    • Is it going to be debilitating?
    • Can you infect someone else?
    • Will you be able to work?
    • How are you going to pay for your treatment?
    • How are you going to take care of your family?
    • How are you going to pay the mortgage?

    “Once you learn more, you find out that hep C doesn’t work like that,” says Porter, who works as a hepatitis C advocate, writing for hepmag.com and hcvadvocate.org. “If you find out about it in an early stage and get some good, solid information, you find out that those fears don’t usually get realized.”

    Remember: In many cases, the medicines that your doctor prescribes can pretty much wipe the virus out of your body.

    “There is nothing to be afraid of. No matter how you got the infection, now we have a group of different, good therapies that can get rid of this infection,” says Victor Machicao, MD, a gastroenterologist with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth-Houston.

    “I usually tell [people] there’s a good chance that, you start taking the treatments, you’re going to start feeling better, and by the time that we complete the therapy, you’re going to feel almost like a new person.”

    Embarrassment and shame: Hepatitis C gets spread through exposure to an infected person’s blood. That’s the only way. Often, that’s how intravenous drug users, sharing needles, spread the virus. Sometimes, it gets passed down through high-risk sex. Before 1992, when blood wasn’t screened for hepatitis C in the U.S., it often was passed along through transfusions and organ transplants, too.

    Some of those activities — drug use and high-risk sex, especially — are what many people associate with hepatitis C. That thinking creates a stigma that makes people who have the disease not want to tell others about it.

    “So many of [the people I treat] are those baby boomers who did have a brief period of experimentation with drug use. Or maybe they did use drugs for a year or two of their adolescence. But now, that’s like 30 years ago,” says Andrew Muir, MD, a hepatologist who is chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, NC.

    “Often, they’re not married to somebody that they knew back then … it’s embarrassing, then you’re worried about what that person is going to think of you, and then when you realize that there may be a chance that you’ve passed on the virus through sex. … All these things are spiraling around in their heads.”

    Guilt: “There’s a lot of guilt, especially in someone who has a remote history of IV drug use, or got a tattoo at an unregulated parlor, or had a high-risk sexual encounter,” says Nancy Reau, MD, section chief of hepatology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

    People feel guilty about the possibility that they’ve infected others unknowingly. They feel guilty about putting loved ones in a situation that is often financially and emotionally costly. Sometimes, it can be too much for a person to handle.

    Regret: People with the disease often beat themselves up for not making better choices when they contracted the virus.

    “At that point, I tell every single one of my [folks] that there’s not a single one of us that wouldn’t go back and change a decision that we’ve made,” Reau says. “To some extent, looking back isn’t going to help us. We have to look forward.”

    Anger: “Anger is not an uncommon one. Anger is one of those emotions that make us feel like we’re empowered,” says Porter, who got hepatitis C in 1988 through a blood transfusion.

    For some, it comes from the fact that they had nothing to do with what gave them the virus.

    “I didn’t react with anger because in my case, that blood transfusion saved my life. But other people … can feel quite angry, and they feel quite victimized by that. I find [this] one is probably the hardest to address. Sometimes I just acknowledge that they feel angry.”

    Depression: The virus, the symptoms that may accompany it, all the emotions — it can be difficult to handle.

    Muir says a common scenario, in his experience, is a drug user who addresses the problem of addiction, goes in for treatment, and just as things start looking better, finds out they have hepatitis C.

    “I find a lot of them are really down on themselves: ‘I’m a bad person, I did this, I’m being punished for it.’ We really need to try to change the way they feel about that,” Muir says.

    “I was a mess. I felt dirty. I was hard on myself,” says Stella Armstrong, a Las Vegas office manager who got the virus through drug use. Armstrong is now virus-free and is a hepatitis C advocate and member of the National Patient Advisory Committee for the American Liver Foundation. “I had to seek counseling. I had to see a psychiatrist. I was taking depression and anxiety medicine.”

    How to Get Help

    Talk to your medical team. Meet with your doctor and anyone else you might need (a hepatologist or pharmacist, for example). Get a plan. Follow treatment.

    “You start there. Always,” Porter says.

    Don’t underestimate the power of feeling physically better. It’s good for your mind, too.

    Once again, the virus can disappear in many of those who have hepatitis C.

    “People are surprised. They ask you, ‘Doctor, did you mean ‘cure’?” Machicao says. “They come to the office and say, ‘Doctor, that means I don’t have the infection anymore?’ I tell them, ‘For practical purposes, you’re cured.’ They are in total disbelief. It is amazing.”

    “The success of being cured of hepatitis C is really powerful,” says Muir.

    If you feel depression or anxiety, the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that you talk to your primary doctor or go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. Depression is a real illness and, even in the most severe cases, it’s treatable with medication or other means.

    Get educated. Find trusted sites online. Ask your doctor questions. Know what the virus is all about. Separate fact from fiction.

    “Education is how we start breaking down the stereotypes. How we find out we don’t need to be afraid anymore,” Porter says. “It can release the chains of anger.”

    Find some support. It can help to talk with other people who have been through what you have. Your doctor can point you toward online groups filled with people who are going through the same process. In some places, you can meet with people in person. Social services through government agencies or hospitals can help, too.

    “When you start to see other people who have a history of drug use, that regret and shame starts to diminish. ‘OK. I’m not a bad person. I can deal with this,’ ” Porter says.

    “I’ve always been open and have discussed my addiction with drugs. I think it’s the best thing. We only stay as sick as our secrets,” Armstrong says. “It was better for me to share my story. It’s still the same thing. It’s still hepatitis C, and we have to get through it.”

    Lean on family, friends, clergy, whomever it takes. Whether it’s someone else who has been through hepatitis C, or a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or your best friend — even if it’s a complete stranger — sometimes you just need a shoulder or a sympathetic ear. Search them out. Use them.

    “No matter how much positive you can hear about it, you still have to go home, you still have to be at a point by yourself, thinking these bad thoughts and you’re worried and you’re scared and you’re scared of the unknown,” Armstrong says. “Those are the times you have to call somebody and talk to them.”

    Take care of yourself. Once you get your medical plan in place, once you have your support in line, once you’re educated and know what you’re facing, taking a little “me” time is in order.

    “Having a chronic illness is hard,” Reau says. “Start by looking at the things you can change easily.”

    Eat well. Exercise. Get your sleep. Some people like to meditate. Nap if you need to nap. Make sure you’re around people you like. Enjoy a good book or a movie. All these can help you deal with the stress and emotions of hepatitis C.

    “Even at my lowest point and when I was feeling really sick, you just gotta keep moving. You have no other choice,” Armstrong says. “You have to keep moving forward and treating yourself well.”

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  • Rolling the Dice: When You Ignore Hep C

    Rolling the Dice: When You Ignore Hep C

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    More than 2 million people in the United States live with hepatitis C. Many of them haven’t been treated and are at risk for cirrhosis, liver failure, and other complications of the disease, even though new and better medications have made treatment easier and safer than ever before.

    Most people don’t ignore their hep C. They’re unaware of it. Over half of those who have been infected don’t know they have the virus.

    “The most common reason why someone isn’t getting treated is that they’re not diagnosed,” says Norah Terrault, MD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of GI and Liver at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California.

    Hepatitis C is a silent disease that usually doesn’t cause symptoms until its late stages, Terrault says. That’s why the CDC recommends that everyone ages 18 and older get tested at least once in their lifetime.

    Testing is especially important for people who are at higher risk for hep C because they share needles, they have HIV, or they had an organ transplant or blood transfusion in the past. It’s also important for pregnant women, who can pass the infection to their unborn baby.

    Untreated Hepatitis C Complications

    Hepatitis C infects the liver, an organ in your belly that produces bile for digestion and rids your body of toxins. The virus causes inflammation that slowly damages your liver over many years and leaves it scarred.

    Without treatment, that damage and scarring can turn into cirrhosis in about 20% of people with the infection.

    “Cirrhosis is the end stage of many decades of inflammation and injury,” Terrault says. “It means you’ve got a lot of scarring in your liver, and the scarring is interfering with the function of the liver.”

    Once you have cirrhosis or liver cancer, “It’s difficult to come back from,” she adds. “Your treatment becomes a liver transplant or potentially a very complicated cancer therapy.”

    By treating hepatitis C you’ll prevent cirrhosis. And by preventing cirrhosis, you’ll avoid liver failure and liver cancer.

    Nonliver Complications

    Your liver isn’t the only organ that hepatitis C can damage. The virus also triggers the production of cryoglobulins, proteins that clump together and cause inflammation. This can increase your risk for kidney disease, blood vessel damage, and skin rashes.

    Hepatitis C might also affect your body’s ability to use insulin, the hormone that moves sugar from your blood into your cells. About 1 in 3 people with chronic hepatitis C have diabetes. It’s such a common problem that doctors routinely monitor their hepatitis C patients’ blood sugar levels, Terrault says.

    Can the Virus Go Away on Its Own?

    That depends on how long you’ve been infected. About 25% of people who have recently been infected — called acute hepatitis C — do clear the virus on their own. People in their 20s and 30s are more likely to clear the virus than those in their 60s and older, Terrault says.

    The other 75% of people don’t clear the virus within 6 months and develop chronic hepatitis. “For chronic hepatitis C, the answer is no. There is no way to get rid of it,” says Ype de Jong, MD, a hepatologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

    What Treatment Can Do

    Once you get tested and find out that you have hep C, treating it not only prevents complications. Medication will most likely cure you.

    Treatments have improved dramatically in the last decade. Before 2013, the main option for people with hepatitis C was to take a combination of peginterferon alpha (PEG-Intron) and ribavirin, plus boceprevir or telaprevir. This three-drug cocktail took up to 12 months to work, only cured about half of people who took it, and caused severe side effects.

    The introduction of direct-acting antiviral medicines like sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), simeprevir (Olysio), and daclatasvir (Daklinza) was a “game changer,” de Jong says. “We could start curing people with interferon-free regimens.”

    The new generation of hepatitis C drugs work quickly, within 8 to 12 weeks. And they cure about 95% of people who take them.

    Plus, they’re very safe. “Two-thirds of my patients have zero side effects,” de Jong says. “The most common side effects are headaches, fatigue, and some GI discomfort. All are very mild.”

    If You’re on the Fence

    Some people who’ve lived with hepatitis C for many years or who remember the old drugs might worry that going through several weeks of treatment will be tough. “I tell them it’s going to be easier than treating your blood pressure in terms of the side effects, and it’s going to be shorter,” Terrault says. “This is the easiest thing you’re going to do in terms of benefitting your health.”

    Getting treated will lower your risk for cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure. You might also reduce your odds of getting diabetes, and protect your heart and kidneys. “If you treat someone and cure them, you can substantially reduce their future risk of getting those complications,” Terrault says.

    Plus, you won’t be able to pass the virus to anyone else — including your unborn baby or sexual partner. And once you’re cured, you’re cured for good. The virus won’t come back unless you get reinfected.

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