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.

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GENOTYPE AND VIRAL LOAD?

deleted_user
deleted_user
OK, so I got a letter from my gp. I have genotype
1a and my viral load is 3.9. From what I have read, 1a is the least resoonsive to treatment. And I can;t figure out how or what my viral load denotes.
Anyone care to enlighten me?
deleted_user
deleted_user
Im Genotype 1-A too, Im not sure if your 3.9 is millions or thousands??????? And yes Genotype 1-A has the hardest to cure. 3-TX's Here Non-Responcive here.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Viral load is specified as a PCR blood test. It took me years to get a doctor to do one. Mine is 450,000 very low I guess for having it almost 28 years and no treatment yet except milk thistle. high is 800,000-3 million. but I am stage 3 bridgeing fibrosis and early cirrhosis so I am not sure if those numbers mean anything now or not. My new doctor says the viral load is not relevant unless you are starting treatment. this time I believe him. Get more information for us to help you with
deleted_user
deleted_user
Hiya Shakey,

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?

Mouse
deleted_user
deleted_user
I am Genotype 1a as well. My viral load was 301,000 to begin with. I am currently in my 15th week of TX and the VL is less than 10. I opted not to do the biopsy until after treatment because I wanted to try to clear the virus before finding out how much damage there was.
deleted_user
deleted_user
I have come accross a very supprising hepatitis condition that has never been seen unless you have a liver biospy. It is called NALFD or advanced version is NASH-non alcoholic steatohepatitis or Fatty liver disease. This condition takes the damged liver into deep fibrosis long before the virus does and there is no cure for that disease. I have studied and saved many web pages of information but I do not know how to attach them here. Email me and I will send the attachment.
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