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Texas Hepatitis Help

It all started just before christmas, my dad was finding it hard to walk and eat. My mom took him to the hospital and they said it was a circulation problem and gave him pain killers. Since then he just hasn't been getting better, he had a loss of appetite along with the leg pain and last week they went to a clinic and discovered he had lost 34 lbs since christmas eve, he had a uti and bronchitis, they drew some blood. Monday my dad went to work and came home with a "confused" or "vacant" look on his face, mom called the paramedics, no stroke, no heart attack. Tuesday the blood work from the clinic came back and said he has hep c. Now since christmas he has been working on and off, it seemed like if he could take a day off to rest he'd feel better until he went back to work, then he would come home feeling terrible again. The problem is he went to a GI dr, and the tests they want to run are the afp/lft/and hep genotypes, along with an MRI totaling $2100. My dad is 60 years old and at the moment he is still "technically" employeed although this week he was only able to work 1 day. the clinic told him he couldn't go back to work, but the GI dr won't sign his medicaid release until he has the $2100 to have the additional testing done, so I was wondering if anyone knew of a place in south east tx that he could get these test done for cheaper. Any help would be tremendously appreciated, I thank you all in advance.
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223152 tn?1346978371
I am a little confused.  There are ways that the liver can be checked without a $2100 MRI. It could be that they are looking for something other than the state of the liver. What are they looking for with the MRI.  Has he had a simple (cheap) liver panel (blood test)?

If he works, how are they (or you) qualifying him for medicaid?  I think maybe you are applying for medicaid but the doctor cannot sign off on a diagnosis without more testing to determine what that diagnosis is.  Do they suspect cirhossis?

frijole
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Avatar universal
I know he has had blood work done at the clinic, that is where they found out about the hep c and refered him to the GI doctor.  Yes the GI doctor does suspect cirhossis, he has been a drinker for many years before he started getting sick, the GI doctor told him he's probably had hep c for 20-30 years, how he knows this I have no clue. And as of today he is unemployed, he was fired today because he is too ill to work. I just don't know what to do, my dad was never an iv drug user and has only had 1 blood transfusion in 1994 he has no tattoos. We did find a doctor in houston willing to do the test for $700 and he said that it was 2 catscans that were ordered not the mri that I thought. 1 with dye 1 without. I haven't seen him since christmas and until today my mom has been very positive and strong, but today she is not doing so well, she says he is just wasting away and that I wouldn't recognize him if I saw him, which seems unreal since I saw him less than a month ago. Why is it progressing so fast and seemingly all of the sudden? One day he was fine and now less than a month later he can barely walk and is under 130lbs, has no appetite or strength. He has an appt. for friday, i'm just worried now about how he is deteriorating so quickly, is this normal? He is an otherwise healthy man, I probably haven't seen him sick 5 times my entire life..... Thank you for any feedback
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