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Post Triple Therapy Side Effects: Joint Pain/Stiffness
Finished triple therapy Jan 28, 13. (early) due to side effects and now I am experiencing joint pain, stiffnes that
started a couple months after treatment.
When I sit for any period of time, my hips are so stiff and my feet are stiff too. My feet feel like they can't hold me up. Ambulation is not so easy. After a few moments of being up on my feet and walking the discomfort and stiffness goes away. I am also experiencing wrist pain, carpel tunnel type symptoms in one hand that I dont use much for writing or anything. Wakes me up at night. I am not over weight and I am very active. I don't understand what is going on. I was checked for autoimmun diseases and that was negative. My hep doctor denies any knowledge of such side effects post treatment and tells me this is what happens when we age. No way. No Way! I have worked out my whole life and am very active, before treatment I did kick boxing, zumba, weight lifting, pilates and yoga. No I can't do those things yet to the degree that I was before, but I am working on getting my strength and endurance back. I understand it take time, but...
Is any one else experiencing joint problems after treatment? What have you done to treat and did you get back to normal? I started taking supplemts: glucosamine, chrondroitin and msm to try and help but not so far. Triple therapy turned my body inside out and although I am feeling much better then I did when I was on treatment, these side effects are new to my body. I feel like an 80 year old instead of an active 50 something.. Thank you for any advice or sharing of your post treatment new side effects.
started a couple months after treatment.
When I sit for any period of time, my hips are so stiff and my feet are stiff too. My feet feel like they can't hold me up. Ambulation is not so easy. After a few moments of being up on my feet and walking the discomfort and stiffness goes away. I am also experiencing wrist pain, carpel tunnel type symptoms in one hand that I dont use much for writing or anything. Wakes me up at night. I am not over weight and I am very active. I don't understand what is going on. I was checked for autoimmun diseases and that was negative. My hep doctor denies any knowledge of such side effects post treatment and tells me this is what happens when we age. No way. No Way! I have worked out my whole life and am very active, before treatment I did kick boxing, zumba, weight lifting, pilates and yoga. No I can't do those things yet to the degree that I was before, but I am working on getting my strength and endurance back. I understand it take time, but...
Is any one else experiencing joint problems after treatment? What have you done to treat and did you get back to normal? I started taking supplemts: glucosamine, chrondroitin and msm to try and help but not so far. Triple therapy turned my body inside out and although I am feeling much better then I did when I was on treatment, these side effects are new to my body. I feel like an 80 year old instead of an active 50 something.. Thank you for any advice or sharing of your post treatment new side effects.
We post therapy are experiencing the same symptoms. I have not heard of any triple therapy/interferon tx doctors acknowledging our symptoms. I am also dissapointed in their sluffing off post treatments to "Old Age". We are the agent orange victims of hep c chemo therapy. It may be years before the doctors or drug companies acknowledge there are many post tx symptoms. I am in the medical field and I know, I don't know everything. I also know that what we are all experiencing is REAL.. period. The chemo we took has taken a measurable toll on our bodies and these side effects can't be impossible. Bottom line the experts do not know of all the damage the medications have caused us. For them to discount and make excuses is really sad/shameful. Take good care of yourselves. Eat right, get enough water & sleep, exercise. Listen to your body. I hope that time and self care will take care of or lesson your pains. It is not in your head, discomfort post treatment is real. Hang in there. Ceonothus you put it well, let's keep on trying to get answers and get healing, thank God for each other. Wishing you all the best.
I'm so sorry you are having to go through this, and I too can feel your pain. It sounds much like my own journey except that mine started at the beginning, and the diagnostic labs done for those problems are what led to my HCV diagnosis. They never could definitively diagnose my autoimmune problems in spite of an incredible variety of tests. The results were always a little vague or borderline in some way. I've had these generalized joint problems for decades now, with the initial approach being tons of heavy-duty NSAIDs, which only made my liver sicker, followed by a long period of only minimally effective treatments, but always with the hope that if I could ever eradicate the virus then the auto- immune and inflammatory responses might subside. Initially my rheumatologists were extremely sympathetic and very pro-active in trying to find solutions, but then I was only about 36 years old when it all started. Over the passage of many years (I'm now 59) the symptoms did gradually become somewhat less dramatic, though still quite problematic in terms of the effects on my functions of daily living, but the same doctor's zeal to help me has nearly died out. It now seems that problems which were once seen as in urgent need of some kind of resolution are now more likely to be seen as a normal part of aging, so even if the problem is the same that I had at age 36, at age 59 it no longer is worth troubling the rheumatologist over. And this is supposed to be the best rheumatologist available in the SF Bay Area!
Fortunately, as the years have passed, the ferocity of symptoms has gradually reduced by itself. I'm sure part of that is due to my gradually learning not to push any part of my body too hard, which unfortunately has some negative sx on my general fitness as well as playing havoc on the self-esteem at times, but it beats having the underlying problems snowball into excruciating pain and disability, which they readily do when provoked. I'm learning this all over again right now, as I had joint replacement surgery on my right thumb this last Monday, due to severe osteoarthritis. My right hand is in a cast for three weeks and is unusable, so I have to do everything with my left hand. I'm not trying to do anything extreme, just the necessities of feeding myself, bathing, dressing (try pulling your pants up with just one hand - it is a lot more work than you'd expect!), and a little holding of reading material or one-handed computer work, and I've had lots of help from my hubby on almost everything. Nevertheless, it has sent my left shoulder and arm into a really painful inflammatory response.
My advice to anyone who has a new rheumatologist who is trying hard to help: get as much help as you can as early as possible, because my experience says that over time they will lose interest and you will gradually get more and more of the shrugged shoulders and "you are getting old" response. My HCV was finally eradicated and I was declared SVR about 6 months ago. I've been feeling better a little at a time, especially in the last two months, until this surgery caused a new inflammatory flare. I'm still hoping my autoimmune stuff will subside more with more time free of the virus, but its hard to know whether a post- interferon syndrome will just fill in the vacant spaces. I do really cringe whenever I read of people having these problems come up post-interferon. All I can say is let's keep on trying to get answers and get healing, and thank God we have this forum.
Fortunately, as the years have passed, the ferocity of symptoms has gradually reduced by itself. I'm sure part of that is due to my gradually learning not to push any part of my body too hard, which unfortunately has some negative sx on my general fitness as well as playing havoc on the self-esteem at times, but it beats having the underlying problems snowball into excruciating pain and disability, which they readily do when provoked. I'm learning this all over again right now, as I had joint replacement surgery on my right thumb this last Monday, due to severe osteoarthritis. My right hand is in a cast for three weeks and is unusable, so I have to do everything with my left hand. I'm not trying to do anything extreme, just the necessities of feeding myself, bathing, dressing (try pulling your pants up with just one hand - it is a lot more work than you'd expect!), and a little holding of reading material or one-handed computer work, and I've had lots of help from my hubby on almost everything. Nevertheless, it has sent my left shoulder and arm into a really painful inflammatory response.
My advice to anyone who has a new rheumatologist who is trying hard to help: get as much help as you can as early as possible, because my experience says that over time they will lose interest and you will gradually get more and more of the shrugged shoulders and "you are getting old" response. My HCV was finally eradicated and I was declared SVR about 6 months ago. I've been feeling better a little at a time, especially in the last two months, until this surgery caused a new inflammatory flare. I'm still hoping my autoimmune stuff will subside more with more time free of the virus, but its hard to know whether a post- interferon syndrome will just fill in the vacant spaces. I do really cringe whenever I read of people having these problems come up post-interferon. All I can say is let's keep on trying to get answers and get healing, and thank God we have this forum.
I feel your pain, literally. The psychological adjustment is just as painful, too. It's like adjusting to your life being over as you once knew it. You sound just like me pre tx and then post tx. Next week will be one year since EOT, and many of us have experienced your post symptoms, some less and some more. Some resolved their issues entirely and some have not. I don't know if it is dependent on how long we had HCV and what it set in motion prior to tx or if it has to do with the condition of our livers and many other health factors.
My primary physician sent me to a rheumatologist because my ANA (inflammation marker) was slightly elevated along with all of the other symptoms you mention. It's not arthritis, it's not fibromyalgia, it's not exactly/for sure Polymyalgia rheumatica, Lupus, etc, etc., but at least my PP and rheumatologist don't blow it off. I don't even deal with the hepatologist who ran my study so I don't know what his take on it would be, and to some degree it doesn't matter as his job was just to get rid of the damn virus and so far, so good, and for that I am truly grateful! The rheumatologist seemed to be very familiar with the ANA, autoimmune issues, stiffness, joint/muscle pain being associated with not only HCV, but the treatment and put that in writing in the report back to my PP. They think I should apply for a disability and support me in that. I, too, am so debilitated I could not return to work. I can't sit, stand, walk for any length of time, I also cannot reach, lift, etc.so there's not much I can do. Just know that many of us know your pain and we care; I think we all think about each other all of the time. Try to find a good rheumatologist and maybe look into a disability. That would at least alleviate the mental strain of no job, no money and no health insurance. It is definitely a nightmare.
My primary physician sent me to a rheumatologist because my ANA (inflammation marker) was slightly elevated along with all of the other symptoms you mention. It's not arthritis, it's not fibromyalgia, it's not exactly/for sure Polymyalgia rheumatica, Lupus, etc, etc., but at least my PP and rheumatologist don't blow it off. I don't even deal with the hepatologist who ran my study so I don't know what his take on it would be, and to some degree it doesn't matter as his job was just to get rid of the damn virus and so far, so good, and for that I am truly grateful! The rheumatologist seemed to be very familiar with the ANA, autoimmune issues, stiffness, joint/muscle pain being associated with not only HCV, but the treatment and put that in writing in the report back to my PP. They think I should apply for a disability and support me in that. I, too, am so debilitated I could not return to work. I can't sit, stand, walk for any length of time, I also cannot reach, lift, etc.so there's not much I can do. Just know that many of us know your pain and we care; I think we all think about each other all of the time. Try to find a good rheumatologist and maybe look into a disability. That would at least alleviate the mental strain of no job, no money and no health insurance. It is definitely a nightmare.
I would say about a month and a half after 12 weeks of triple therapy, the ligaments/tendons in my hands hurt as well as at my elbows. I can't seem to grasp anything without my hands feeling weak. I worked out before treatment with free weights but have a heel of a time doing curls. It is odd because this part of my body didn't hurt before treatment. I've been dealing with this for about a month and it doesn't seem to be letting up. Hope it doesn't spread to other parts. I also noticed that my migraine headaches took a back seat to the therapy. Once I stopped my migraines came back with a vengeance. Sometimes two a day. 2-3 times a week. Auras, lights, squiggly lines and headache. I told my GI doc this and he looks like a deer in headlights. Funny before treatment I asked about long term after effects and I keep asking. I guess we are the test subjects at this point.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278584601003244
last one! I'm gonna lie down! x
last one! I'm gonna lie down! x
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It really does take time and if you were once an active person I am sure you feel impatient.
I believe my joint pain which was severe was a result of HCV. However, I felt so bad during treatment I was barely mobile which I believe worsened my condition.
I have found gentle or restorative yoga to be helpful. My joints had hurt so bad I as afraid to exercise them for a long time. I began to swim and when I found the movement to be pain free, it gave me the confidence to try the yoga moves. It is helping.
Like I have been told countless times, be patient and just stay with it, when you find the that exercises work for you.
I believe in time you will improve.
I wish you all the best.