Look at this HCV Protocol from 2002

[George_D]

www.thorne.com/media/hepatitis_c.pdf
This was posted in Alternative Medicine Review in 2000; it includes most of the effective non-drug treatments. Of particular interest are the comments on compliance and follow-up. These protocols work, but only if followed for months, and lifestyle, diet and other factors are almost as important as supplements, perhaps more so in the long term. On the other hand, taking the supplements certainly makes it easier to improve diet and lifestyle, perhaps over the next few years, so don't be discouraged if it takes a while. Colchicine isn't used for HCV anymore so far as I know; l-methionine is as good as NAC, perhaps better if steatosis is an issue (geno 1 and 3), and the whole B-complex is desirable as well. So is extra magnesium and balanced minerals other than iron, including boron, manganese, zinc. The cod liver oil here is a good idea.
Because immunosuppression is a significant factor in HCV I add astragalus and cordyceps.

[maunufish]

I'm a newbie searching for answers to help my friend with cirrhosis.

George_D. says, "I already felt much better within a week of starting selenium & ACE and l-cysteine,"

First of all, what is ACE?

I have a friend with Cirrhosis, lots of pain, ascites. can't eat much without pain. I recently purchased Doctor's Best stabilized R-LA, Mierva Curcumin, Source naturals Selenium, Sublingual Bs, and some Milk Thistle. I still have to get Ascorbic Acid and Vit E to complete what is basically Dr. Berkson's 3 Antioxidant protocol. (I added the curcumin based on some good reports from India..).

As I mentioned earlier, my friend can't eat much without pain. Some things will give him a pain that lasts for days, during which he eats nothing. I'm wondering if he's going to give up on the above therapy because the ingredients cause pain? Acsorbic Acid? Alpha Lipoic Acid? And the other thing I can't find any answers to is if this thing works, how long before he starts feeling some relief? I read a lot of Burkson materials, and not much is said about how long before his patients started feeling better.

Thanks

[hippygem]

Thanks again George, very informative.

[George_D]

Apart from this protocol and the life Extension one there are some hypotheses of related disease pathology that I think are valid and that I've found useful; H. D. Foster's HIV/AIDS hypothesis (on his website) is relevant to HCV, as describing the initial stages of oxidative stress and immunosupression, by sequestration of selenium and amino acids, that allows the virus to become chronic (the HCV genome has exactly the same selenium-sequestering gene sequence as HIV); Rich Van Konynenberg's CFS/ME hypothesis (on the Phoenix Rising website), transposed to liver cells, explains how both fatigue and fatty liver come to result from oxidative stress impairing methylation; and of course Burton Berkson's "Triple antioxidant" therapy, as described on the Wikipedia Alpha Lipoic Acid page, was the original model of an effective antioxidant therapy for HCV (but bear in mind that Berkson's treatment is actually far more comprehensive than just 3 antioxidants!).

[George_D]

Following something very like this protocol it took me 4 years to get to very normal bilirubin and GGT and high-normal AST/ALT, and to feel normal all the time - and it probably took that long to correct lifestyle and diet, to quit most drugs and sugar and foods I knew I was intolerant of; but on the other hand, I already felt much better within a week of starting selenium & ACE and l-cysteine, which is how I began; like being reborn after a decade of depression, sickness, pain and fatigue.
And I don't believe for a moment that I would have turned around diet, lifestyle and life if not for the supplements giving me the edge I needed first. The idea of doing something for a payoff much later was alien to me then. Within six months to a year, it became easy to think that way.
Of course it is impossible to analyse such experiences by a drug test model. There is a constant process of readjustment going on, and to get the best results you have to allow it to happen, allow the patient to be guided by their own best interests, not to mention their budget. If you haven't introduced so many different variables that statistical analysis is impossible, you're not doing it properly.
All you can say is that you can start with someone very sick by all criteria of liver and psychological functioning, and progress in a few years to a point of good health and social functioning obvious to any objective observer, without using drugs or surgery, which is contrary to the supposed course of the disease.
What you realise is, that the conventional model of Hepatitis C progression is a construct; it is the consequence of neglect and mis-management by the hepatologists describing it, not the inevitable results of infection at all.
The doctor who predicts cirrhosis and discourgages the patient from aggresive supplementation is creating the disease, not predicting it.

[bajawoman]

thanks for posting  the info  I only hope these  types  of  non- invasive studies and non drug treatments will continue   Very interesting article  When I saw HR he also said lifestyle changes were the most difficult for us to make but for the changes I have made which are small steps it has made a difference  thanks again
baja