i don't know anything about incivek, but victrelis has a protocol guide that explicitly gives the # of weeks of treatment. And its not based on emotion or guess work, but your prior history with treatment and what happens in the first few months of victrelis treatment

If you are treatment naive (never had any form of hcv tx) your treatment is 28 weeks, if you took treatment but relapsed (meaning the virus went away while on medicine but came back when meds stopped it's longer, and if you took treatment and never cleared the virus (even during treatment) its the longest, 48 weeks.

Add to this logic is what your viral load is at week 8 or 12

so, assuming incivek (the other option for triple therapy) has it's own protocol rules, you can see that it's not guesswork

And be suspicious if the doc makes it sound that way. On the other hand, (with Victrelis) part of the length of tx is determined by your viral load at certain points, so he's right that the treatment time is not totally determined ahead of time

Basic rule, less is better, but once you get into it and its underway as much as you want to stop you also want to make sure the little bastard virus is dead

ok, i'm an idiot (and it's not brain fog from treatment, i'm all done). I just re-read your post about being treatment naive. It could be 50-50 based on your viral load around week 8. if you're clear you might stop at 24, if not and you clear at week 12, it could be the full 48. if not clear at 12, they stop treatment

take a look at the newbie corner for more info http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/newbie-corner


i thought you were going to ask the difference between 24 and 48 weeks, and it made me laugh. we were in hawaii and they were selling 100% kona coffee and 10% kona coffee, one for (making up the numbers) $40/lb versus $15/lb. Being clueless I asked the sales clerk what the difference was between the two coffees, and she said 90%

So, the difference between 24 and 48 week treatment is 24 weeks

Hoping you get to do 24 weeks, but with 50/50% chance its probably best to prepare to do 48, If you stop early its a bonus!

They do have charts and are able to give you your percentage probability, I have seen one for my standard treatment (interferon and riba only). It has to do with starting viral load count, virus type and the amount of virus at certain points during the "therapy". Don't really know about triple at all sorry, I think if you must be on that option because my doc said with my tx I had a 50% (at best 60) chance of clearing the virus with 48 weeks of treatment, there was no mention of getting to stop early until 12 weeks in.

Thanks, guys. He's recommending triple, w/Incivek. I just don't trust him because I read drs get $ for getting people on TX. But I'm also looking for reasons not to do this. I was hoping he'd say "wait two years for the better stuff" but he didn't . I'll be getting a second opinion.

brigid

I'll give you a second opinion.

I don't care if my doctor got a gazillion dollars from Merck. Their drugs worked and I no longer have HCV, after 43 years

If she wants to buy a yacht with the Merck money, and I dont believe she got any, I hope she has calm seas and no pirates

Doctors get money from the drug companies for their patients who are on clinical trials, and when I was on the original Inf/Riba trials many years ago the doctor got paid for the extra monitoring and care he had to provide. He earned it for having to deal with me :)

Take the victrelis.

You get a 4 week lead-in. If your VL drops > = 2 log10, then you have like an 80% chance to clear. If it doesn't drop enough, then you stop Tx & you'd only got 4 weeks of suffering.

Brigid, I'm doing triple therapy w/incivek. I treated with soc (riba & pegasys) a couple yrs ago and was a slow resonder & relapsed. I stopped tx after 6 months, against dr's wishes.
This time around I was under 25 (viral load)at 12 wks, and undetectable at 24 wks. so it's working. I'm starting 34th week today.
I would find out how many hep c patients your dr has treated or is treating. I think that's important to know.

I don't know what the actual odds are, but I went into treatment PLANNING on 48 weeks and HOPING for 24 weeks. I followed the medications protocol to the letter, and got lucky...no more HCV after 24 weeks.

I would do whatever your doc says to do. They pick the drug they think is best for you whether it's Incevik or Victrellis. I had the Incevik and was told the same thing, that I would most likely only do the 24 weeks, but there is a chance that if I wasn't clear of the virus at week 12, then I would continue on and do 48. I was undie at week 4, 8, 12, and onward.

Incevik does work! I was genotype 1b and all the treatments before last year didn't work on my genotype.

Vic does work also! Joe is living proof of that! He got his " CURED" notice, so both are drugs that work, just depends on what your doc wants you to have.

I finished the Incevik, then was taken off the Interferon/Riba combo at week 20 because of other problems. I'm hoping that 20 weeks was enough. I feel that it was, but I have a VL test pending right now and if it's undie, then another test in 6 months. If it's undie too.....I'm cured!!!! I still just LOVE that word!
Best of luck to you in which ever one you decide on.

Hi Brigid,
I was told that if you had any liver damage as a result of Hep c that it is automatic 48. Now on week 36. Good lucc and go for it.
Bill