Hep C Discussion Forum

Hey thanks for sharing those - those are beauty EOT ALT/AST's now! (compared to your pre-treatment ALT 48/AST 34)! Your EOT hematocrit (Hct) within normal limits now, and sugars altho they have been a tad over 99 (your labs "normal ref range"), these wee sugar blips can happen, and they can be seen during treatment sometimes too, just keep watching your sugars over time - if your doc was concerned about sugars he would certainly be telling you so - overall, very good looking labs indeed! How is your hemoglobin now? Your doc will very most likely be repeating almost all of these tests over again anyway, at EOT+12 weeks and then at EOT+24 weeks, so, plenty of time and opportunity for both you and he to keep an eye on good labs.

Stellar LFT's and a nice big UND - spells winner!

Ya, considering all, being on treatment and your teeth troubles and sleep and all, I am glad you had not been committed to a new job during treatment. Hope the sleep regularity, and feeling better and better, over tme will happen soon for you. Zep can take a little bit for it all to ebb from the body, keep treating yourself really well, as far a drinking lots of good water and good food. Your body (being finally free of this virus) is now in a new state of normal, consider the next little while a recovery period from both divesting yourself of the virus and the treatment drugs. 

Exercise, in moderation, (walking) as you mentioned, would be an ideal thing for you during this period. Maybe you will try yoga again? That's always a safe bet in my book.

So glad you are virus-less.  C.  (namaste)   

Hey Steve,

Wonderful! Congrats on your UND!  and the rest of the good looking labs - share those labs if you will/can. Would love to see the "after" ALT's, AST's, Hct. and such, to compare to your pre-treatment ones.

So, if your SOT was Oct, then this UND must be your EOT VL?

Wonderful news.

Do let us know how you have been faring, up until EOT. Teeth things all quiet now? Are you about to go for that part-time employment you were speaking of earlier?

Thanks so much for getting back to your pals here with your newest news. Great news. You've been zeparized, but good!  C.

Canuck wrote:

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Hi Steve,

I'm happy to hear you got both your root canals done already, and, have a script for your continued antibiotics.

So, it seems that the post you first made (a couple weeks back), about the vague aching/discomfort sensation around the area of a "deviated septum" when you laid down at night, may indeed have had something (in part) to do with the escalating and continuing troubles with the subsequent ear pain/infection and then the dental problem! Indeed, maybe you had some quiet dental problems going on for some time, that were behind all the other ear/sinus events.

What was your hep doc visit like (aside from him being pleased with your progress) - did he look in your ears or nose/too? Did he tell you when to go to the lab again for your next blood tests?

How many days-worth of clindamycin did the dentist give you?, and was it the same anti-biotic the walk-in clinic gave you, and was there any "gap" (any days of no anti-biotics) between the first antibiotics they gave you and then the clindamycin?

It may be too soon to tell (what with all the root canal work you just had done) but do you discern less of that "septum" discomfort sensation? And, is your ear finally feeling like it's resolving, no more vertigo/ear pain?

Hope your feeling better, all in all. Really good you got those teeth taken care of. C.

(Sheesh everybody, what's with all this big run on root canals - is it "root canal month" or something - did i miss the memo?!)

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 The anti-biotics are just 7 days. I've used this before. The doc said he'd do the next hep labs when I'm done so about 7 weeks from now. I feel much better after the root canals but naturally it's double sore right now. I've gotten some decent sleep the last couple days.

wendyo wrote:

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I hear ya guys! Had to have a crown replaced 2 months ago and now another one today! But Tig is right, there are dentists that will go thru the crown. But not all dentists do it. A few years ago I had a tooth die and it took many appointments with different types of docs before they figured it out and I had an earache as well due to the location, severity etc. 

Sure hope you get to feeling better Steve. 

 

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 It depends how much the gums have receded I guess. I had a root canal redone recently on the other side and they went through the crown.

I hear ya guys! Had to have a crown replaced 2 months ago and now another one today! But Tig is right, there are dentists that will go thru the crown. But not all dentists do it. A few years ago I had a tooth die and it took many appointments with different types of docs before they figured it out and I had an earache as well due to the location, severity etc. 

Sure hope you get to feeling better Steve. 

Saw the specialist yesterday and he was happy with the labs. Saw a dentist today and I need a couple root canals. I'll have one done tomorrow. Also see if I can see an ENT doc.

I wish thy they could reuse the crowns for the root canals but no can do.

For pain I just take Bayer. I'll make sure there's no interaction between the Zep and whatever anti-biotics I'm given if any  for the root canals. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. If I'm up for it maybe I'll have both teeth done.

Have you had any trouble taking Ibuprofen and/or an antihistamine in the past? Depending on kidney function and sensitivity to any of it will determine your risk or reward. It sounds like you’re improving and that’s great. I think you would really benefit from an inflammatory like Ibu, provided you can take it. It will reduce the discomfort too. As always, check with your doc first. If there’s something OTC that will improve your comfort, it would sure be worth trying. I’m glad you’re feeling some improvements today, hopefully tomorrow will be even better.

Don't try to "hold off" to see a doc if your ear is still bad - go back to the walk-in clinic (if that is where you went) or to any other doc that is open on a weekend, for another lookie loo and opinion, they should be made aware of your distress, your veritigo, and all symptoms. It would be best to have your ear re-examined and re-assessed. They may prescribe something (additionally) just for the pressure/pain and/or vertigo. The clinic (who gave you the antibiotics) - did they suggest any further drugs for you if you continued having no relief?? Did you two discuss analgesics, decongestants/antihistamines or local measures such as moist warm, compresses?

Did you do the hot/warm moist compressing as described earlier?

We are indeed lucky when anti-biotics start to provide some resolution and relief right away (within the same or next day), but sometimes anti-biotics can take days to kick-in (to the degree that we detect relief). I would not be "waiting" for anti-biotics to kick in, nor "waiting" for a certain doc, I would opt to be re-seen right away to have my drum looked at again, and to see if anything else can be suggested to relief the symptoms. C.

Glad to hear you obtained the treatment required for that ear infection. The pain from those is terrible. Just laying your head on a pillow is excruciating at night. I’m not telling you anything, I’m sure!

Get well soon and don’t pull a muscle or pinch any nerves in the gym. Seems everyone but me is on some sort of exercise program. I guess I better consider ramping up my now nonexistent routine...  

Hoping you go to a walk in clinic so you can get on the mend quickly Steve. And don't forget the list from Tig on the drug interactions. Feel better!

Glad you found us.

Hopefully when you begin treatment you will join me in the "Used to be chronically constipated club".

I suffered (you know what I mean) for nearly 3 years of backedup-itis, and ended up after 2.5 years of various procedures, misdiagnosis and misery, diagnosed with HCV.

As it turns out, a happy liver can make a big difference in how your digestive system works.

After about 6 weeks of treatment, my caboose loosened up, and now at 3 months post treatment, I am about 97.3% normal. 

My guess is that things will improve for you, a lot, now that you are UND.

Ear infections are the bane! As a child I lost about 30% of my hearing in my right ear due to chronic bacterial infections. Hope that gets sorted quickly.

I want to get into this deeper but right now I have an earache. This has been coming and going for a couple months and got worse a few days ago. Tried home remedies. I had an infection a couple years ago. That hurt much worse and came on quick. Antibiotics started working immediately.. Like 15 minutes. I talked to a nurses hotline last night and got into details. I might have to go to a walk in clinic and I talked to them already. Regular doc can't get me in.

It's interfering with sleep. I'm just wondering about drug interactions. I'm allergic to penicillin.

Hey Steve!

Congrats on your 4 week UND!! And good for you for finding out your lab results earlier than waiting for your docs appoint on the 28th!

Lots of good news in that report (for just your first 4 weeks)! Your ALT has started to come down from prior 48 to now 44! Your platelets (which you said were thought low pre-treatment) have proven themselves to be within normal limits, twice since then, once just before you started ZEP at a respectable 158, and again now at 167, so that is good.

We all noted your elevated hgb and hct, and yes, as Tig mentioned, it would be nice if we had all your earlier labs results for before and after comparables, but at least we do know your pre-treatment hct was 51, and is 53 currently. Indeed, it would have been interesting to know if you had high hgb's before. It is hard to say why these things could be elevated, they may just normalize again after treatment (same thing as what Tig was saying about glucoses sometimes fluctuating and then normalizing later) - my hct and some of my other bloods just normalized, all by themselves, post-treatment. But rest assurred, they will re-test you again for these things, so you will be able to see them improve.

Aside from wondering what your pre-treatment hgb was, did they also do any tests like iron, iron saturation, ferritin, TIBC's - they sometimes do those and that may be good info for them to see if they are (or were) elevated along with when your hgb/hct is elevated. My hct, ferritins, iron saturation and TIBC's were all abnormal (along with some other funny bloods) and all of them normalized all by themsleves after treatment. Also, did they ever do an AFP on you?  You also had one (that we know about) high pre-treatment Alpha2Mac at 310.

Just like following your glucose, hgb, hct and alpha2mac (to see them normalize again), it would be reassuring as well to have been tested for these other things (items underlined above). You can ask for them to be done if they have not been done.

You said ... "Things don't seem to be too bad" ... ? I'll say! You are understated! I would be as pleased as punch at having that UND already. You are most definitely entitled to be kickin up your heels brother! It's going great!  C.

heehee - I loved your analysis ... that "Zep is weird", but "in a good way". 

Congratulations on your undetected! Zep is killing it, literally! The only thing that sticks out are the Hematocit, Hgb and Glucose. I see your Hematocrit was elevated pre treatment, what was your Hgb at the time? Has your doctor provided any insight into those numbers? The elevated glucose seems to be one of those things a lot of us drift towards. Mine was high during treatment, albeit different drugs, but it seems to happen in many cases. It returned to normal soon after I finished tx. The rest of your results and that splendid UND, are stellar!

Keep at it, you’ve got an exciting response to treatment going and lots of Hep C free living ahead.

PS: Feel free to start a new thread in the On Treatment section, now that you are well underway. You graduated!

Canuck wrote:

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On the work or no work situ, it's really up to you Steve, you know how you feel and how much energy you have. The treatment period is a (may not seem like it right now!) relatively short time period out of your life. You have lots of time to work after you are virus-free. But it's entirely up to you. Leave it up to your body to decide how you are feeling, and try to guess if added work might be too much of a demand on yourself right now, or not. I certainly would not suggest for you not to try working if you think you feel good enough, are up to it and are looking forward to it.

Whether ALL what you feel are true "sides" of the drugs themselves (or not sides) is always debatable, some things we are feeling while on treatment are sometimes more just events we are experiencing as a result of waging an inner battle against the virus period. 

Yes, people on ZEP (or any other of the newer DAA's) have reported quite variable feelings while on ZEP, we are not always the same nor have quite the same experiences to one another, but generally, most, have reported a lessening of any perceived negatives the further they get along in their course of treatment. Just like you, noticing you had some more profound fatigue, more in the first 4 days, as opposed to now. I hope any negatives you are feeling WILL decrease as you get further along in your course. Great you are trying to eat well and drinking lots of water - those things/taking good care of yourself, will help immensely to how you feel.

Others on Zep (and some of the other DAA's) noticed they felt better in the latter parts of their course (a lot!), others not so much. Almost invariably tho things improve after you are finished. Everyone is dif. and will experience treatment differently, so it is hard to predict how you will feel on the rest of your 12 weeks.

I am hoping, for you, that you sound like one of the folk who will feel not too bad, from now to the end of your 12 weeks, and will feel much better and start noticing more and more health improvements after you are finished. 

How are your bowels and guts faring since you started treatment? You had had your fair share of unfortunate gut troubles just before you started treatment ... I hope things are more settled and more "regular" now?

As far as logistics (after treatment), you will have to have blood draws again at the end of treatment (EOT), and then at 12 weeks after treatment (your EOT+12 weeks), then again 6 months after your EOT (EOT+24 weeks). What we are looking for is that your VL remains undetected at EOT+12, your "official" sustained viral response (SVR) date, and that you are still showing a SVR at EOT+24weeks. As well as reaching those milestones your doc will tell you whatever else he recommends for you as far as following your health, to know you and your liver have recovered well. You may be told to have repeat ultrasounds, or other tests, as part of the following of your health.

Yes please, do let us know if you find out early what your 4 week VL and ALT is. I am betting you are going to get some good news!  C.

 

 

 

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 I'm feeling a little better everyday. Maybe over a 3 week hump. Bowel movements are regular. Urinate much less frequently even though I'm drinking much more water. In a number of ways I feel better overall than in many years but still, when you have to nap you have to nap. Maybe I'll get on a treadmill in a little while. the only exercise I get is yoga here and there for now. I would imagine a liver in bad shape throws everything off.

Yep, I feel OK. Zep is weird! In a good way.

Canuck wrote:

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Hey! Nice to hear how things are going Steve,

So, with your Zep SOT on Oct 14, your blood draw (last week) would have been your first "on treatment" 4 week blood draw.

Undoubtedly your labs will be for liver function tetst (LFT's) - your ALT/AST and more, and as well they will do another viral load (VL).

These test result may well already be back and known to your docs office - i hope you do not have to wait until your appointment with the doc on Nov 28 to find out how well your VL and ALT may have already started lowering!

Can you not phone them to know your results sooner than the 28th?

Good, you seem to be coping fairly well with the things you are feeling while on treatment, but, that you do discern feeling some dif things. I am just wondering (if you have a choice) if you do NOT "have to" be working, would it be so bad to not start working full-time or even part-time until your treatment is over? - only you can guage how you are feeling and how imperative it is for you to be working and balance the two. I would hate for you to start fulltime (starting a new job can sometimes be a little demanding or stressful) and then not feel well enough here and there and be considering asking for days off, just when you started a new job. Just a thought - like I said, only you know how well and capable you feel.

I hope you are treating yourself with TLC, eating well (healthy foods), and drinking lots of water, and trying to get enough rest even if you have found your sleep somewhat disturbed (you mentioned some insomnia and noted feeling that deviated septum thing when laying down). Steady as she goes bro - how much water are you drinking every day - I found enough water could prevent/cure a headache for me and can help some with fatigue. Good hydration is KEY while on HCV treatment (dilution is the solution for pollution!) water is so good for keeping our bodies flushed of built-up toxins/waste products. Water is good for every tissue in our bodies. Needed. A little daily non-strenuous moving out and about in the fresh air is good for a bod too.

Thanks for checking in, fire away if you have any questions, and we'll see what kind of answers surface around here! Please do let us know if you find out your lab results earileir than the 28th?

You sound as you are doing pretty good!  C.

 

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 I could wait till I'm done I suppose. I get the impression that sides can be all over the place. What should I expect after the 12 weeks? I'll call about results next week. It was a frozen specimen. As for eating, I try to eat bananas, avacados. Eggs. 3/4 -1 gallon of water. About 1/4 lemon in a glass. No vitamins. Rarely use antacids.

Just checking in. Went for labs last Monday and I'll talk to the doc on the 28th. I have sides but they're not too bad. Tired. That comes and goes. Same with headache and insomnia. Some strange aches and pain in the area of a diviated septum but only when I try to sleep. That's just been the last couple days.

I think I'm up for a job. Guess you're supposed to negotiate full versus part time.

Sides aren't too bad, just strange. There was definitely something going on in my liver and I was very tired the first 4 days.

Overall it seems to be going OK.

Hi Steve,

That is a great resource. We have utilized the excellent University of Washington website for years. They’re always in the forefront with new information. We have other good sites available on our Hep C News and Useful Information sections.

This example shows a formula to estimate fibrosis stages by blood marker testing. Provided someone has had these tests done, approximating your fibrosis is possible. Combined with ultrasound (fibroscan), noninvasive testing is providing more and more accurate and repeatable results. 

We’re waiting for your start of treatment briefing, Steve! You might want to move over to the On Treatment section and start a new thread or pick up in one of the Zep threads. You graduated! Feels good to start destroying the Dragon that has been destroying you! You’re on your way, good luck!

Dont forget to hydrate!  

 Steve,

Ok, HAPPY Saturday then!! C. 

Hey Steve,

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Let us know how day one is going. What time of day did you choose for your daily Zep dose? How much water did you manage to get into to you? That's a good lookin sig line BTW!  C. 

LM,

No, I can't take credit for the 1 gal water bottle artistry, I just copied it off mr. google (but I DID keep a gal bottle like that going, all day every day, when i was on treatment) and I could guage at a glance if I was doing it or not! I didn't make any marks on mine, maybe I should have!, I just knew by looking at it at the end of the day whether I had been doing good or failed to keep up.  C.

Canuck wrote:

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That's great news Steve that your Zep is on it's way!

You mentioned ... "I should receive it on Friday. I take something for thyroid and a statin. The pharmacy said I should talk to my Dr. about reducing the statin from 40 to 20 MGs. Myralax for GI issues has worked well. I take about a 1/2 dose a day" ....

Be sure you have touched base with your doc before you start (if you two have not already seen each other, unless he told you to just go ahead and start regardless) - but, just in case there ARE any other last minute things he would want to cover with you - ie ... like the drugs you mention above, or his advice (on anything), or to pre-book your next series of appointments with him, and to pre-arrange what exact days to go to the lab for ongoing bloods through treatment. As well, you never did say if you and he have finished assurring that your hep a/b or other immunizations have been covered. 

You may expect to be required to have lab work (on time) at the end of week 4, and, at end of treatment (EOT) - if your Zep is for 12 weeks, then those may be the minimum labs you will have during treatment, there may be more labs than that asked of you during treatment - so do check with your doc's office what your lab draw schedule is, and, what your doc appointment schedule is.

Get your water intake "system" ready and set up ahead of time, you are going to have to drink a lot of water while on treatment - strive to drink a gal of water per day - without fail - do not ever let yourself get behind or dehydrated during each day - you may well feel poorly without the help of the water. Carry water with you if you are out and about.

The increased water intake is very important, it may feel a burden to have to drink that much water, and inconvenient when you are busy and have to be peeing all the time - but so worth it, it helps tretament and can actually prevent common complaints people have sometimes while on tretament such as headaches, etc., and this is aside from water just being good for our bodies and bowels in general.

Figure out the best time of day to take you Zep and stick with that time, create a way you will never be able to forget to take the Zep each day, on time/same time.

Glad your start day is so near!  C.

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 The gastro specialist told me to just go ahead and start. I had a long talk with the pharmacy who provides the Zepatier. They went into details. Can't get a hold of my regular doctor about lowering the Atorvastatin dose so I'll try the gastro doctor and see what they say.  I think the time to ask about scheduling labs would be after I officially start the Zep.

Hoping for the best!

I put more info in my signature.

That's an excellent example of what we all should strive for everyday! Good find, Canuckster    You continue to amaze me with your diligence and hard work for the members. I so appreciate you and the help you give. 

Steve, that's exactly what we're talking about! If you can follow that guideline, you'll be cruising to a minimum of low water side effects, if any. We can't impress on those starting and currently on treatment how important ample hydration is. If you can set up that signature information, it really helps us when replying. If you need any assistance inserting it, just let me know. It's all done via your profile page and limited to 300 characters. Easy peasy!

One other thing, once you start treatment, you'll need to start a new thread in the On Treatment section or utilize the Zepatier thread already in motion. Your choice.  You've graduated from New Member!

Hey Steve,

Congrats on the approval. Zep is the real deal and I see in your signature that you're a GT 1b. The SVR rate of success in your case is 99%. Doesn't have too far to be considering perfect! It would be nice if you could tell us what your pre-treatment liver function tests were. That way we can follow the improvements. Be sure to get the results from your doctor for your own medical file. That's always a good idea. I missed out on a trial years ago, because nobody had kept copies of my testing results. Never again will I not come home with a copy of any testing performed. After all, we paid for them!

Here's some trial data on Zepatier from the phase 3, C-Edge trial. Just shows you how effective it was and why it was approved. Expectations are high with this protocol. Good luck and prepare for HYDRATION!