Living With Hepatitis C

I contracted Hepatitis C when I was 2 years due to a blood transfusion. Recently, my GP pushed me to start seeing a liver specialist.

The specialist told me I had two options (since I do not have severe symptoms at the moment and my liver seems healthy).

(1) I could start taking medication. They are experimental drugs, however, that I told him I was not comfortable.

(2) monitoring of the disease with blood work a year and a liver biopsy. I chose this option.

My question is this: I just found a biopsy costs $ 1,000 (after insurance). I can not afford all this year. I asked if there were other options regarding the monitoring of my liver health and a healthy lifestyle.

He said he really had no other recommendations (which annoys me).

Health is important, but I can not afford one biopsy every year for the rest of my life. Do you have any good resources on a lifestyle that is healthy for the liver? Anyone with hepatitis C have a board?

not need a biopsy a year. You could get blood tests every 6 months (liver function tests). Avoid alcohol. avoid liver toxins (which you can watch on the internet). Consider cleaning the liver. I do not think you should start a medicine because it has many harmful side effects. There are currently experimental molecular markers to detect a genetic predisposition to the development of fibrosis and cirrhosis / HCC against hepatitis C (after all, is the real concern that you get one of these diseases). You can contact the Johns Hopkins Medical Center to learn more about it. They are very friendly. Cheers.

I do not want to do a biopsy every year is excessive.
If you avoid alcohol, Tylenol, and most other drugs ... your liver is not damaged so easily.

What exactly are the experimental drugs, he wants you to take? You know you can do pegylated interferon treatment ribivirin / (it's been almost 9 years) and you have a good chance of cure. It is a new drug that is known as Phase III telaprevir that would reduce the time you would have to treatment.

I no longer live with the virus, because the treatment has worked for me in 2003.