Hi Dopey,

Congrats on giving Rx another try. We tend to use 'Victrelis' on the forum, rather than boceprevir.

As you are hopefully doing 48 weeks Rx, I think Victrelis is the better choice. If I could explain the lead-in, perhaps you'll understand about the significance of the VL drop. Both Victrelis and Incivek are useless on their own.  Resistant mutations rapidly develop (RAV's) and Peg. and Ribavirin are essential to control these RAVs. The Peg-interferon is particularly important- some patients are not sensitive to Peg. and their chances of SVR are reduced. These patients do not achieve a 1 or 2 log drop in VL after the leadin, and the same group of patients will not be Undetected at week 4 on the Incivek triple.

I have not read that Victrelis will not be with-held from patients who do not achieve a certain drop in VL during the leadin. The rules do change, but the stopping rules for Victrelis are VL >1000 at week 8 or week 12, and if not Undet. by week 24.

You would be regarded as a partial responder based on your previous Rx results. Even partial responders can achieve SVR, as the rules change with triple Rx compared to the old SOC.

Whether you are on Victrelis or Incivek, it is the same story. Peg and Riba must work for Rx to be successful.  Good luck!

Thanks Jill and DJ. Yes DJ I just wish all this was explained to me before. When I saw my consultant in July 12 he said I would be going on boceprivir so when I was given a choice by the nurse I stuck with this cos I thought maybe the doc knows best!!! But had I known of the importance of the 4 week 1 log drop I may have jumped head first and gone for the telepravir.

Anyway I will fight my corner when we get to that bridge and push for the new drugs, the way I see it is what's the point of having new drugs if I'm not going to be able to try them.  The theory behind it is bizzare and 2 days later no matter how much i think about it i still can't see logic. 

Hi again Dopey, good to hear you`ve started tx now.  It takes guts to go for another round of tx and I wish you all best of luck.  Just take it day by day and keep moving forward, and try not to worry about what happened last time.

Keep in touch!    ~ Jill

You have started the fight and that is the main thing.  To be honest, until I found this forum many of the health professionals I dealt with either projected they knew a lot or were at least honest and said I will have to check into it, yes the waiting is the hard part and if we worry too much we feed those dam squirles up in the head and they can make a mess out of your serenity.  I am on the 3 therapy with Victressi and though I do not like all the downs I have had I am coming up to week 24 and virol load will be checked and stopped if detected and continue for 48 wks if not my virol load started at 24 mil down to 17 mil down to 9,000 down to < 15 so there always is hope, keep in touch with this place as it is a good place to starve the squirls.

Bill and Family

BiggyB thanks for that I'm glad someone has said I made the right choice I was a bit scared whether I'd made the right decision. 

Thanks and well done DJ I hope I can say that in 4 weeks time!

Thanks for the replies. Well Neil my worry is that when I asked the nurse about what my response was last time at week 4 she said that I'd not had any drop.  my viral load did drop by week 22 but not enough that's why treatment was stopped

Does that categorise me as a non responder???

.......I know I'm being silly and need to just focus a day at a time but.........

Good choice on the Victrelis. I went from about 1 million to 1600 in 3 weeks, been undetectable from wk 8 to now wk 31.

Hi everyone guess ive been promoted to this part of the forum!  I went for my appointment today and have finally started. I injected myself and am now sat waiting for the side effects to kick in !!! 

I decided to go for boceprivir so am having a 4 week lead in. I will be on treatment for 48 weeks.

The nurse told more something that surprised me she said that if I didn't have a 1 log drop by week 4 all treatment will be stopped and they will not introduce the boceprivir. Now if I had been told this at my last appointment there's a possibility I might have gone for telepravir as opposed to boceprivir. 

I've come back from the appointment really concerned and I guess I'll be like this until my 4 week results are in. 

Not to worry, Log 1 should be no problem. At week 8 I was down to 33 copies from 4,000,000 which translates to a > Log 5 reduction I believe. If you were to begin with a VL of 3,000,000 you would need to be better than 300,000 at week 4. Shouldn`t be a problem unless you`re a non-responder.