
Hepatitis C Support Group
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne viral disease which can cause liver inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is spread by blood-to-blood contact with an infected person's blood. Many people with HCV infection have no symptoms and are unaware of the need to seek treatment. Hepatitis C infects an estimated 150-200 million people worldwide.
I'm genotype 1a also. I'm pretty sure that the 3.9 is probably 3.9 million. Pretty typical for a hepper. But remember viral load (VL) is pretty useless unless it's being used to guage how well one is reponding to treatment. It has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of liver damage a person has. Good case in point would be the info that Heartafter gave you. 450,000 viral load with extensive damage. I'm even lower, I have a viral load of 111,000 and like Heartafter, I also have advanced liver fibrosis, Stage 3, Grade 3/4 with extensive bridging.
I'm a firm believe in a liver biopsy before making the final decision to treat or not. Has your doctor mentioned anything about doing a biopsy?
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