sore throat?

[dragonslayer]

I got a sore throat and cold like symptoms 3 days into treatment.  It's tempting to blame any new symptoms that correlate with a new prescription on that prescription.  But we have to remember that people on treatment are subject to same colds and flu as anybody else.  And i haven't read of this being a side effect.  Nevertheless i was just wondering if anybody else got these symptoms.

[lporterrn]

Hi Paul,
Good instincts to assume you just might have an unrelated garden-variety sort throat.

[dragonslayer]

Hi Paul,
Good instincts to assume you just might have an unrelated garden-variety sort throat.

Thanks for that Lucinda... I used to think that every little ache or pain I experienced, or sleep problems, or symptom of god knows what had to have been caused by my HCV.. Once I was on piece of gym equipment at a time I was experiencing some URQ pain, and got dizzy, after which I had convinced myself I had cirrhosis.  I spent weeks looking for those telltale signs of spider veins near the neck and all kinds of other things.. My palms were reddish sometimes: had to be HCV, etc, etc.   All this with a stage/grade 0-1 BPX repeated with same result on two occasions.    Tends to turn one into a real hypochondriac doesnt it!   Just knowning this is inside of you and knowing it's progressive without a linear rate of progression is one of the most unsettling feelings.   So glad this is about to be over!

[lporterrn]

Paul - I relate 100%. I don't know if you read any of the blogs, but I wrote this 2 weeks ago: [url]http://bl
I am soooo glad I am not alone.

[dragonslayer]

Paul - I relate 100%. I don't know if you read any of the blogs, but I wrote this 2 weeks ago: [url]http://bl
I am soooo glad I am not alone.

Lucinda, just read your blog relative to this...  You've been so helpful to so many through all of this; your efforts are So appreciated.   When I saw my hepatologist to get my  Harvoni prescription, he had another doctor who was helping him pre question me (they must be so overloaded these days).  He asked me if I had any symptoms, so I mentioned an occasional pain in my side, to which he gave the common  'liver cant feel pain' response,  brain fog, red hands, insomnia, etc.. His response to all was the same:  With a stage/grade of 0-1, those symptoms are not hcv related..  Basically, he said those symptoms are related to cirrhosis, so I dont have them, or, theyre related to something else.   He may be right, too... As weve discussed, its very common to blame everything wrong with the way we feel on our HCV.  Doctors have been telling patients for years that the URQ pain they're feeling is not liver related.  Frankly, I have no idea what caused mine.. I was pretty sure it was HCV.. Back about 5 yrs ago, not long after I was diagnosed, I confess I did some occasional drinking before I truly bought into my condition, and it was usually some time after this I would feel the pain.  Yet, with my biopsy result showing virtually no inflammation, its hard to figure how the HCV had anything to do with the discomfort.     In these cases, I think its important to remember correlation does not necessarily mean causation.   With a low stage and grade, odds are that something else is at the root of some of these problems....  As we know, most people with chronic HCV dont have physical manifestations of the disease, but the knowledge that we are infected causes us to think our illness is the cause of our symptoms.  We cant underestimate the power of the brain and its psychsomatic relationship to these issues.   Your blog bears this out when you talk about the stress related to your career, and how it caused symptoms masquerading, at times, as those of HCV.  The symptoms seem real; its the cause that we are questioning.  So, once again, thanks for raising important issues relative to our condition.

[Rubye]

I guess much of the thing with symptoms is knowing yourself and your body. I've had hcv for maybe 40 years and never worried about it and never had any symptoms at all. Then, when I was told I had cirrhosis a couple of years ago I've come up with about every problem associated with cirrhosis. I've thought I had ascites. Nope. HE. not really so much. When I get honest with myself, rather than all caught up in the disease, I realize I am actually still very very healthy. It is indeed funny how knowing about cirrhosis problems can make us think we have them.

Anyway, I worry about colds also. I was in the store yesterday and for the first time this year heard people hacking and wheezing and started worrying. Of course last night I had a sore throat. I don't have one this morning. The power of the mind over the body. Regardless, I'm still buying a big bottle of OJ today.

[dragonslayer]

I guess much of the thing with symptoms is knowing yourself and your body. I've had hcv for maybe 40 years and never worried about it and never had any symptoms at all. Then, when I was told I had cirrhosis a couple of years ago I've come up with about every problem associated with cirrhosis. I've thought I had ascites. Nope. HE. not really so much. When I get honest with myself, rather than all caught up in the disease, I realize I am actually still very very healthy. It is indeed funny how knowing about cirrhosis problems can make us think we have them.

Anyway, I worry about colds also. I was in the store yesterday and for the first time this year heard people hacking and wheezing and started worrying. Of course last night I had a sore throat. I don't have one this morning. The power of the mind over the body. Regardless, I'm still buying a big bottle of OJ today.

Exactly!!!!   What really puzzled me is that severe itching is supposed to be a symptom of advanced liver damage.  I know what that kind of itching feels like because I experienced a lot of it 40 yrs ago when I contracted HBV.    So I was really perplexed when about a year ago with my HCV, I had about 2 episodes of about a month each of the same kind of nasty itching.. Occurred mainly on the tops of my feet and ankles... Its the kind of itching that leaves fingernail track marks in your skin!  With such a low grading/staging, I really dont understand how this is even possible.  Id be surprised if such an overtly visible symptom would be psychosomatic.   So it was weird, but luckily, never recurred after that.

[Rubye]

The thing is even if it is psychosomatic, it's still there regardless. We feel it whatever the cause. I think psychosomatic symptoms are not given enough validity, which is kind of crazy if you think about it. Pain is pain. Itching is itching. No matter what the cause. 

[dragonslayer]

The thing is even if it is psychosomatic, it's still there regardless. We feel it whatever the cause. I think psychosomatic symptoms are not given enough validity, which is kind of crazy if you think about it. Pain is pain. Itching is itching. No matter what the cause.

Its true... But if some of these are truly psychosomatic, shouldnt they be treated emotionally or psychologically?.. Like you, I dont think the doctors pay nearly enough attention to them, usually dismissing the symptoms with an offhanded, 'you dont really have that; your liver condition does not support it'.  All I know is, the itching, and the URQ discomfort certainly feels real enough when it has occurred.  This despite a bx showing practically no liver damage. .It really is most peculiar..   Kind of like the 'phantom leg' syndrome I imagine some amputees are said to experience.

[lporterrn]

I prefer not to use the term psychosomatic - it maintains the illusion that there is a division between body and mind. I won't address the providers side, since the only part I have power over is my side. Over time, I learned to question my thinking. The brain has a natural tendency to want to connect dots. I love Ranier Maria Rilke's words, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

When I learned to love the questions and to not try to figure everything out, it helped me to see the problem more clearly, and ultimately, find answers I would not have otherwise had.

[dragonslayer]

I prefer not to use the term psychosomatic - it maintains the illusion that there is a division between body and mind. I won't address the providers side, since the only part I have power over is my side. Over time, I learned to question my thinking. The brain has a natural tendency to want to connect dots. I love Ranier Maria Rilke's words, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

When I learned to love the questions and to not try to figure everything out, it helped me to see the problem more clearly, and ultimately, find answers I would not have otherwise had.

This might be beside the point, but from a clinical perspective, if treating an individual, wouldn't the treatment approach for a psychosomatic illness sometimes take a different path?  Clearly, if a cure for the underlying physical illness were available which would also take care of the related psychological component, that would be preferred. But in the case where the the psychological component had no medical basis in fact, wouldn't the clinician then want to separate the two?

[lporterrn]

Dragonslayer, you make excellent points. The problem is complicated, because just because you can't find a cause, doesn't mean there isn't one. I think I bristle at the separating the two because we often forget that psychiatry is a medical specialty. When we embrace rather than stigmatize the psychological, it will be a better world, in my opinion.       

[JillLynn]

double amen to that Lucinda. 

[Sheltonmj]

I got a sore throat and cold like symptoms 3 days into treatment.  It's tempting to blame any new symptoms that correlate with a new prescription on that prescription.  But we have to remember that people on treatment are subject to same colds and flu as anybody else.  And i haven't read of this being a side effect.  Nevertheless i was just wondering if anybody else got these symptoms.

I have the exact same thing. I rarely get any kind of sore throat except enter a good snore.
 But this sore throat is more like around the Adams. 
 I'm seeing the liver doc Thursday.