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William Schaffner: Suzy did not recognize her illness the first time she got it and many people do not. It’s only when they get into their chronic phase where periodically for reasons that they don’t understand. Their appetite falls off, they get muscle aches and pains, they may get a little bit of fever and they feel generally crummy and it was during one of those occasions when she went to see her physician where they did the appropriate tests and discovered she had Hepatitis C.
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. It’s caused by a virus. One of several viruses can do this. Each of them has a letter designation. Hepatitis C is what we call a blood-borne virus. This is a virus that can be in the bloodstream for a long period of time.
The major way Hepatitis C continues to be transmitted in this country fortunately, not as frequently as before is through intravenous drug use. People who share needles run the risk of acquiring Hepatitis C infection. There are lots of reasons not to share needles. This is another because no one wants chronic Hepatitis C infection. Fortunately, sexual transmission is extremely unusual and even women who have an infection only rarely transmit it to their unborn child.
About three quarters or sometimes even more of patients who get infected develop a chronic smoldering infection so there’s continuing inflammation in the liver. This is not a good thing. You can imagine that if you have chronic inflammation, the body responds trying to repair that inflammation and tap it down and what happens is scarring of the liver can take place and in the long hall that’s scarring causes fibrosis of the liver. The liver becomes a network of scar tissue and that’s called cirrhosis and when that happens, the liver literally fails. It can’t perform its very important metabolic functions. If you have this chronic illness, you must not drink alcohol because alcohol can be an additional insult to the liver.
You want to get yourself in the best general physical shape. You want to eat well and then they have now specific treatments that can be administered according to a complicated schedule. It puts a little like diabetes. You have to be very self-aware and you have to collaborate very closely with a doctor in the clinic that’s caring for you but the good news is that a substantial proportion of people can actually have the Hepatitis C virus eliminated completely and those where it is not eliminated completely, you can have the damage reduced. So it’s well worthwhile seeking care, making sure you get the right diagnosis and receiving appropriate treatment.
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