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Avatar universal

I fathered kids while hep c positive

I hate to go against the doomsayers on hep c. But  I must tell the positive side. HepC is rarely a death sentence, only 10-15 percent develop liver cancer or cirrhosis in there old age from hep c. I ve had hepatitis C for over 17 years and I am still in good health . I have fathered 2  daughters in that time who are healthy, normal and free of hepc. I have had regular sex with my woman and she also has not contracted hepC. Hep C is rarely contracted by sex, in fact everyone I know who caught hepc it was either through drug experimentation using needles or through blood transfusions
I think  doctors have  exaggerated the fear of hep C  by naming  the condition  HCV which sounds  awfully like HIV.
The 2 conditions are a world apart


This discussion is related to Help understanding Hep C treatment.
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179355 tn?1207407251
Could I be lucky on my second go around and reach SVR? What about my third attempt if the second time doesn't work? Try for four?  I don't like the disease in my body any more than the next hepper but why kill yourself (metaphorically speaking) if you don't have to.  Not now anyway. The old adage about fighting another day is certainly true for some of us who can afford to wait for better and more promising treatment. The key, as copyman said it, is close monitoring.  There is no doubt that Hepatitis is a killer and to fool yourself in thinking otherwise is like spinning the chamber on a pistol.  My hats off to folks like spcecst2 who endured multiple treatments but if I can afford to wait by closely monitoring my condition and treating if and when my condition worsens, I'm that much closer to a better percentage of SVR than I was three years ago. That is, hopefully with new drugs somewhere on the horizen and before I reach 65. And, by the way, it was neither experimenting with drugs nor a blood transfusion that caused my Hepatitis C.
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Avatar universal
you can keep fooling yourself thinking you have / will beat this resilant disease but trust me it has a way of sneaking up on you and biting you in the @ss. Do yourself a favor and be monitored every six months or at least yearly by a hepatologist. Good luck
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233616 tn?1312787196
your one remark has some basis in fact in that heterosexual transmission is rare, not so for other the other type of sex where tears and fissures expose blood products to a greater extent. Where sodomy is practiced HCV transmits as easily as does HIV.

However I have to tell you your remarks in general are very subjective. I have 2 kids also...and lived many years not knowing from whence my dwindling energy supply was originating.
I managed to run a business, raise my kids and have hobbies on the side also.

Then the disease advanced from its stage 1, stage 2...which can go on for 20 years..
into stage 3 and 4.
At this point///let me be subjective both your spleen and your liver can become enlarged and painful. You may have continual pain and fevers....exaustion and depression becomes the daily norm.
The virus will have destroyed enough liver tissue to make it's function greatly diminished, and the the levels of ammonia in the brain will rise and you will feel like you have alzheimer's at an unexpectedly early age.
Many systems in your body will begin to break down. Your sleep will be greatly diminished, your tongue will swell making it hard to breathe at night....you may begin to see veins in your esophagus and elsewhere swell or even burst.....it goes on and on.
Does my subjective view sound like just a friendly little bug to you??

So again, your analysis is based on only subjective knowledge from your own life experience, and not on any comprehensive medical information.

Certainly there are differences between HCV and HIV, but there are also hundreds of similarities. Cheif amoung them is that they both are retro virus, both mutate regularly and are highly adaptive, both attack and damage the body systems, eventually overwhelming the immune systems ability to keep up.
Both are treated with some similar families of drugs, both are studied together quite often due to their similarities and due to the large populace of co-infected patients.
Both are the recipients of the benefits that AIDS research has brought to the table regarding how retrovirus' attack and replicate.

Currently HIV's progression to Aides can be held off by 20 plus years by the new medications developed, BUT HCV has become the first virus to benefit from drugs able to eradicate it from the body....and hence the first virus to ever have an actual "cure" available.
Be aware that while stage 1-2 can last for many years, stage 3-4 can advance much more quickly...the disease is not a linear progression..once a certain damage level has occured the downward chart is quite a drop off...and people can go from stage 3 to end stage in very short order sometimes...

sorry to say all this to you, but this is a life threatening disease and I'm uncomfortable letting rose colors glasses type statements stand uncontested in here.

I know you are singing a happy song now...but trust me, in time, you will be longing and searching earnestly for those cures because liver failure is one of the most brutal forms of death to endure. We know, and many in this forum have witnessed this process in their own selves or loved ones.
We lost a beautiful young man in his 20's to this disease in this forum this year....
his name was Nick,
he got the disease from treating with blood products for his hemophelia
and he did not have time to raise a family or call this a benign disease.

Go read what is available on liver disease...just google "end stage liver disease"...
then come back and we will all be glad to help you decide when you plan on treating your virus, so you can stay around for those children and grandchildren.
Until then, my best to you.

mb
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Avatar universal
Here's an earlier study that suggests low rate of cirrhosis in the subset of women infected at an early age but data is only followed for 20 years which may account for some of the earlier claims that cirrhosis occurs with less frequency than the study just posted. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/460551_1

But in any event, these studies are aggregate figures and individual experiences will vary. What I carried away in terms of Watch and Wait is that one has to be much more vigilant with such an approach as one approaches age 65. That might mean more frequent biopsies or fibroscans when you get older.
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Avatar universal
Jim, thanks again. I just read the Medscape article and found it to be quite scary. In fact it kind of puts a whole new spin on whether or not to treat. Sixty-five is sounding younger to me every year. Many people have a couple of decades of life after that and to think it can be compromised by cirrhosis is not a happy thought.
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Avatar universal
There are several studies I've seen besides the veterans, I believe England and China also did studies!! And I've read stuff about the life span with cirrhosis!!!!!!!!! I treated three times,,,, but if someone can come to terms with having Hep C and not going thru the treatment, or going thru the treatment and not being successful, then more power to them cause TX S-u-c-k-s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But getting that SVR was worth it for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The last round I did max dosing cause I could not stand to live with it and couldn't say quit, but I'm still feeling the effects!!!!!! So I can understand "arpren" which could even be a fake post!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I don't even know why I'm posting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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