I have two questions

[Squiggles]

I have read where several people are experiencing less joint pain.  Does anyone know if this will be permanent? Have they had time to do studies of this effect? 
and....Will we be able to donate blood when we are pronounced cured?    Of course we would have to meet the other criteria for donating.

[KimInTheForest]

I have read where several people are experiencing less joint pain.  Does anyone know if this will be permanent? Have they had time to do studies of this effect? 
and....Will we be able to donate blood when we are pronounced cured?    Of course we would have to meet the other criteria for donating.

Hi Squiggles. I don't know about the joint pain. But on blood donation, my understanding is that we won't ever be able to donate blood because we will always test positive for HCV antibodies for the rest of our lives. And although a viral load test/PCR would establish that we have no virus in our bodies, those tests are very expensive and will not be run on donated blood for cost reasons. A letter from our doctors saying we are virus-free would prove nothing, since we could at any later point contract HCV just like anybody else could.

So unless a super-cheap viral load/PCR test is developed, I don't believe we will ever be eligible to donate blood.

kim

[Lynn K]

We will forever test positive for hep c antibodies because we were once infected. Antibodies are not the virus they are made by our own bodies in response to the hep c virus in an attempt to fight off the virus.

The blood banks only test for antibodies and so if we did donate our donation would be disposed of and not used. For them to be able to use our donation they would have to store the donation in a secure area to prevent its usage and have the significantly more expensive test for the virus itself  HCV RNA by PCR which takes several days to get back.

So basically it is an issue of practicality plus wishing to avoid even the smallest of unnecessary risk to health.

[Squiggles]

oh that's too bad- I always wanted to give blood- my dad gave gallons of his rare type during his life.  Before HCV, I did not weigh enough.  Time has taken care of that part.  Thanks for the good info.

[Lynn K]

I recently have heard we can donate organs especially for others who are positive for hep c antibodies they might also need a transplant for something else like a cornea or kidney and for me my liver is shot but if yours is still in decent shape someone with hep c and cirrhosis you could save their life. Becoming an organ donor is the gift of life.

[Onefluover]

I agree with Kim and Lynn but would add that it is more due to the stigma. We all know well that used medical syringes, when sterilized in a properly operated, correctly functioning autoclave can technically be reused, was once the norm. But we no longer do that more due to stigma than fear of faulty equipment/operator.

If an economical and fast PCR test were developed, and one will, we will still be forever barred. Asside from stigma, there may be some issue with entering those antibodies into an otherwise pristine blood pool. They won't morph into Hep C but they may trigger unknown things to happen or develope in a recipients body/blood.

However..., and I'm not a biologist, but logic tells me that the day may come that those antibodies may become useful in the developement of a vaccine as was done with Hep B. even if the Hep C antibodies failed to tackle the virus they may still have value.