Hep C Discussion Forum

Good afternoon everyone. Happy to be here. A lady on another HepC  forum suggested this group to me. 

So I'll start with the basics my name is Fran, I'm 40 years old, I'm from Connecticut, Aries, I love books, photography, The Walking Dead, and ridiculously overpriced foofy coffee drinks. Lots of other stuff too, but we can get into that later. 

 I contracted Hep C Genotype 1A when I was 22 years old. I am now 40 will be 41 on April 8. All things considered my viral load is low, my damage levels are low  basically nonexistent if I am reading this correctly, etc.  Dr says that that's pretty damned good.  I can post specific numbers about these things if anybody really wants to know. Just let me know. 

I never tried any treatment. The first treatments I heard about where the old-school treatments that people compare to "chemotherapy but worse".  Something kept telling me to wait. So about two months ago I met a new doctor and she told me about Harvoni .

everybody with hepatitis c has been talking about it since it came out so I was kind of familiar.  Everyone calls it the wonder drug, it will cure you in 12 weeks, low side effects, etc. 

 About 2 1/2 weeks ago I agreed to start the 12 week treatment. I took the plunge. Well, for the first week I have to say I had relatively little to no side affects. I think some headaches may be a little bit of nausea but nothing serious. But about at the two week mark I started feeling worse. Like the nausea was worse, the tiredness was worse, the stomach upset,  last Sunday night I even got my first full blown panic attack in the longest time! Totally ruined The Walking Dead for me, thank God for DVR. 

Since then I've only taken the pills twice. Because I've been scared I don't want to feel like that again. Even now just thinking about taking them is throwing me into a state of physical paniC. 

 I know this is just for quick introductions so I will make a post on the appropriate forum and hopefully I can get this whole thing figured out. I've always felt very isolated and alone and it would be nice to make some friends. Friends who understand what's going on and who aren't going to judge me. Because honestly the minute somebody hears that you have Hep c  they go right to shooting drugs, a lowlife type of person, etc. etc. and that really sucks :(

 Makes me very sad that me and other people go through this.  The stigma attached to hepatitis types he specifically is really scary and sad.

 Thank you for listening and I'm glad to be here. I hope everybody is having a good day and hopefully you stop by my other post and leave some words of wisdom and probably need a few ass kicking's too. But be gentle I'm still a Noob LOL