I'm a 25 male—I've had previous health issues from aged 19-23. I had finally overcome them and turned my life around at aged 24 only to get hepatitis C, through normal sex, which noone really believes but anyway.
I got it at a really bad possible time in my life; when I need things to start going right. Not wanting to lose the current great traejctory I had got on pre-hep C, I said I would be 100% by now, but I'm not, I'm still really tired and have brain fog . Timeline:
I got hep C in September 2019.
I had to drop out of program in December due to not being able to manage, didn't really know why, I kept getting sick.
I found out in Jan 2020 after my regular blood donation.
Apart from the first week of treatment where I had initially more energy, I was really tired during treatment. However, I would say I felt better than before treatment.
I'm supposed to be doing a project which is very mentally demanding (mathematics/Machine learning) so it is really frustrating, being tired as you literally cant do anything towards it.
That's why I gambled in not doing 12 weeks, as if I dont do this project I am a bit screwed in real life.
I did start taking modafinil soon after stopping treatment to try and get some work done (it nullifies the drugs, but as it was 3 days after last mavyret dose, I figured the mavyret was out of my system).
I dont really get how it works, Ive seen some people say the drug keeps working for a month post last dose. some people have 30 at end of treatment but still get SVR12.
I also think when I didn't know I had Hep C i compounded issues by taking so much caffeine/nootropics to in vain try and compensate for failing body/mind.
Tl;DR
I am one week post treatment:
Treatment:
8 weeks Epclusa 1 week Mavyret
Bloods at 4 weeks : <15, detected
fibroscan 5.5
Kidney problems, creatinine before treatment 140 u/mol (70-105), at 4 weeks 128 I think this could be related to the fatigue.
Now what do you guys think my chances of being cured are? I thought 8 weeks of epclusa would be 90% roughly chance of cure , and as I still was detected at 4 weeks I added another week of mavyret which I had just got hold of through the NHS.
do you think the fatigue will lift quite quickly if I just try and not push myself.?
Now I'm still tired , I'm having doubts, and obviously in hindsight regret not adding extra weeks. :-\ :-X
I'll keep this post updated if I ever get a blood test in lockdown. I hope you all recovered well who are post treatment and best wishes to those that still have it.
Lynn K:
From the maker of Epclusa based on clinical trial data
“In a study of 647 patients with genotype 1 Hep C, with no prior Hep C treatment and without cirrhosis, 97% (119 out of 123) of those with lower levels of the virus (less than 6 million IU/mL) who received HARVONI once daily for 8 weeks were cured.”
Standard treatment with Epclusa is 12 weeks for all genotypes. There is a clinical trial currently ongoing to investigate an eight week treatment regimen but I was not able to find data to reflect cure rates for a shortened treatment regimen. There dose not seem to be any clinical trial data available for an eight week treatment with Epclusa
Best of luck
biowarrior:
Thanks, for that info. I'm genotype 2.
I don't know anymore. I'm a bit scared now after reading around here, but maybe that's a selection bias :-\, hmm the mind does play tricks.
I'll try and have a few days off and maybe 2 weeks EOT things will be better.
Lynn K:
Yes we all were worried waiting for SVR 12 results. Just my 2 cents worrying won’t change your outcome hang in there and hope for the best.
biowarrior:
Of course, I can see how much people have suffered, yourself especially. i
im sad your fibroscan hasnt improved .
I guess its managing uncertainty, which I haven't been great at. Im hoping 90%
I do have more anti viral drugs to hand (7 weeks mavyret , 4 weeks epclusa), but I don't know how quickly it would build back up if unsuccessful.
I may be able to get a blood test but only this week, so I would get results in a week. I don't know how informative that would be.
I guess I will keep trying 2 days on, one day off with this project, and wait until the end of lockdown. I'll try intermittent fasting as well if I can as apparently that might help