Hep C Discussion Forum

Thank you so much for the advise.  Our doctor here wants us to go to the city before starting further treatment.  He has been treating my hubby for 15 years and this will be his third attempt at treatment.  I don't know why he didn't choose to lower his script.  He claims his white blood was too low and the although the hemotologist was giving him nuprigin shots, his counts were't coming up.  I feel like dr here is passing the buck. Very discouraging.....I will let him know what you told me. 

Hi everyone. My husband is geno type 1 and was on the triple therapy for 8 weeks. He ended up in the hospital after taking too much ambien and was very confused. His white blood counts bottomed out after the first 4 weeks and was taking nuprigin shots from the hemotologist. He just went back to his doctor and the doctor pulled him out of treatment. We thought he would just go back on and finish the last 4 weeks of insivek treatment but he said his immune system was too compromised. Has this happened to anyone else? Our local doctor here is having him to go back to a specialist in the city before he is letting him continue. He is very depressed and discouraged and was hoping maybe someone on here went through the same. He has tried two other times in the past but this new treatment was going to be a positive treatment as it was his geno type and he had previous failed other treatments. I must say he was very moody and tired of eating of the fatty foods at the 7 1/2 hour intervals. He goes to Mt Sinai in January and hopefully he will be able to try treatment again. I assume if he can, he will have to start the entire the 12 week treatment all over again. Does anyone know if you can begin this treatment process again? I really appreciate any information you can give me. His viral count was still 0 this past week.

That's okay Malcolm....your ongoing advice and medical knowledge by far outweighs this minor hiccup. It did cause some concern but when I read "continue treatment" it cleared my mind a bit. I'm not clear yet but I feel that my body has changed in a positive way so the medication is doing something good....lol.

You can use the "Start New Topic" button to open a new disucussion. or you can continue right here. We see your comments, even if you reopen an old chat from months ago.

Your husband's situation is not unlike so many others we have seen. People have been forced to discontinue the Incivek triple for a number of reasons. Among these are severe rash response and various blood count problems. The Incivek causes the rash response, which can be extremely intense and dangerous. Luckily this is fairly rare. The low white cell counts are typically cause by the peginterferon injectionsm which are used on most treatments today. Many doctors will reduce the dosage of the Pegasys or Pegintron injections temporarily until the white cells come back up. Low red cells and/or hematocrit readings are typically caused by the ribavirin, which can also be reduced to aid in recovery from low red cells. In the Victrelis triple, it sometimes seems the anemia is slightly more of a problem. The neupogen and procrit shots are often used to bring levels closer to normal without reducing the doesages of interferon and ribavirin.

Without more information from the doctor it is difficult to comment on how his decision is based. He obviously felt that the risks outweighed the possible benefits. My advice is to quickly consult with him and find out the chances of continuing treatment and under what conditions. It seems a pity to stop everything at 8 weeks. Perhaps stopping or reducing one or more of the treatment drugs would do the trick. I look forward to responses from some of the others on this forum. There is a wealth of experience here.

 

Alan

-- Edited by news on Wednesday 24th of October 2012 02:19:43 PM