Well, yeah, the coke straw, and that's becuz when coke was a big fad, everyone was having nose-bleeds, etc.
Mosquitos dont bite me either,but I thought it was becuz I eat lots of garlic.
The good news is, Levicah, that if our teen sons do end up having Hep C, the newest meds will be an easy and quick cure. Good luck on getting yrself treated as well~

mosquitoes, no-see-um's, chiggers, gnats, fleas.....bugs love to bite me. I got 70 no-see-um bites that welted to the size of 2 pennies or 3 dimes each. The 2 people with me were not bit at all. Sucks.

I had to cut my hair, the bites were all through my hair, mostly in the part, around and on the ears, and back on the neck. Itched worse than anything I've ever experienced, and lasted over a week. I used calamine, Benadryl gel, baking soda....

Another place to get Hep C, is rhogam shots. I have had 2. One in 1972 and another in 1979. I suspect the second one. It just didn't feel right. rhogam shots are given to woman with rH negative blood after birth to a child with rH positive blood.

Yes, I had one of those Rhogam shots in the late 70's as well, along with several abortions at a nasty clinic in Oakland, Ca, where Hep C is an epidemic.

"Another place to get Hep C, is rhogam shots."

I've had 9 rhogam shots and a gamma globulin shot. I've also had 'free' clinic' dental work.
Chances are far greater that I contracted HCV from one of those sources rather than a coke straw or a mosquito.

Interesting article on hcv & mosquitoes...
From: Another Reason to Hate Mosquitoes
"New laboratory research shows that hepatitis C can grow in mosquito cells, leading scientists to believe that the virus could possibly be spread by mosquitoes."

http://www.webmd.com/hepatitis/news/20000524/mosquitoes-may-spread-hepatitis-c

Ive always suspected there MUST be another method of passing on HCV for it to have survived. The different genotypes are geographically clustered. Some scientists estimate the virus has been around for thousands of years. Obviously people havent been shooting dope for that long, so how did the virus get passed from generation to generation?

Perhaps person A has it, and gets stabbed in battle, and the guy next to him gets stabbed with the same sword. Both survive, and now two people have it. But how does person B pass it on? Does he get stabbed again later on, followed by person C? And they keep passing it on, generation after generation? Crazy scenario, right? And it must have played out exactly the same in different parts of the world for the virus to have survived and have different genotypes.

A much more likely scenario is that there is SOME way the virus is passed that we dont quite understand. Maybe it is mosquitoes, but then why isnt the virus much more prevalent? We all get bitten. I dont know the answers, I just have questions.

To determine whether hepatitis C could grow in mosquito cells, Debriel and his colleagues grew the virus in monkey cells, human cells, and mosquito cells. They found that the mosquito cells were uniquely designed to connect with hepatitis C, suggesting that these insects could indeed carry and transmit the virus.

Debriel, a staff physician at the Hpital Pasteur in Colmar, France, warns that much more research must be done before it can be definitely concluded that mosquitoes actually spread the disease.

However, this is no mere laboratory experiment. The havoc wreaked by a mosquito-borne virus hit close to home last summer, when New York City was swept by an outbreak of West Nile virus, another relative of hepatitis C. Sixty-two cases of encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, and seven deaths occurred during that outbreak -- all thanks to the West Nile virus carried by mosquitoes.

So on the end of the day i was "maybe " right as now you can read it yourself how the cells of the mosquito can support the HCV . Why on mother earth can spread other deadly illness but not hepatitis .No reserarcher actually signed off on that by name!

As you can read it the original theory not holding water, more research would need it, so no one can say it anymore "positively" how you can not get the disease from mosquito bites. was saying it jokinkly at first , but more you read about, more you got to accept the possibility of the transmission to humans.

Bob the spread of HCV and other blood borne disease is highest in third world countries where for many years and still today, unsterile medical procedures take place.
Tattoos, male/female circumcisions, surgeries have been going on for hundreds of years and still do.
People have been injecting drugs as early as 1851.
We only started to screen for HCV in 1993.
It's pretty easy to see how it has spread.

IV drug use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_injection
One of many pages about the third world HCV crisis
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/51/7/768.full