What precautions should we take?

[Xena11]

We have a frequent visitor that stays at our house. She told us she has just a little hepatitisC. She is at our house a lot when she’s on her period.  She kind of leaves a mess in the bathroom trash with blood.  She uses a bathroom with others. Should I allow the others to use the bathroom (bathtub, shower, and toilet) when she is here?  Is there a special way I should clean the bathroom after she leaves. She was and may still be a prostitute.

[Xena11]

We have asked her if she will get treatment, but she said she doesn’t have a bad case of it.  She especially likes to take bathes even on her period so I am worried that if she shaves and knicks something, will this be an issue for the person who may want to bathe after her.  We’ve asked her to be cleaner, but so far she doesn’t seem to be concerned about her hep C.

[flyinlynn]

Hep c is quietly and silently damaging her liver slowly every day. Does she want to wait until she has significant liver damage and is harder to treat?

If you have hep c it is a bad thing. It is called a silent disease because for the majority of people they have no noticible symptoms.

I had hep c for 30 years before I was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. I never felt bad and still feel fine. I treated 3 times with the old meds but they are not as effective as the new meds and was not able to be cured back then. But I was cured 3 years ago with the new medicines.

You may have seen tv commercials for a hep c medicine called Harvoni. There are others. Her treatment could be as simple as one pill a day for as few as 8 weeks and be cured with few to no side effects for the majority of patients.

When it is so easy to be cured today why carry an infectious blood borne virus that is slowly, silently damaging your liver?

I would learn as much as you can about hep c and treatment and try to persuade her to be treated.

With her lifestyle my thinking is that she probably is not as concerned as she should be about caring about her own health and welfare.

Being a prostitute she is in a dangerous occupation not only from her clients but also from serious illness so not surprising that she is not that concerned about carrying hep c.

She should take better care of herself and she should treat her hep c before it can cause real harm.

I doubt there really is any danger from using the bath after her there is really very little risk in a household setting. The recommendation of the CDC is to not share personal hygiene items like razors, toothbrushes or fingernail clippers. Hep c is blood borne blood from a hep c infected person must enter the body of an infected person through an open wound.

Even if a medical worker  should experience an accidental needle stick involving a patient with known hepatitis C the odds of transmission are only about 1.8%  

Good luck to you and her and thank you for your kindness in trying to help.

[Xena11]

Thank you for all your advice.  I will continue to try to convince her to take it more seriously.

[flyinlynn]

Hepatitis c infected blood has to enter the blood stream of an infected person. Basically there has to be an open wound present and this hep c infected blood has to enter this wound.

Menstrual blood does carry the hep c virus and hep c can survive on surfaces if left undisturbed.

From the CDC:

“How should blood spills be cleaned from surfaces to make sure that Hepatitis C virus is gone?

Any blood spills — including dried blood, which can still be infectious — should be cleaned using a dilution of one part household bleach to 10 parts water. Gloves should be worn when cleaning up blood spills.”

I am somewhat surprised someone infected with hep c would be careless with blood getting on surfaces.

But in any case as long as the blood does not enter your blood stream you are not at risk. Household transmission of hep c is very rare. Just use caution in cleaning any blood spills per the CDC recommendations and you should be fine.

[flyinlynn]

There is no such thing as having a little hep c either you have hep c or you don’t.

Has she looked into treatment?

Hep c today is now very treatable and curable for most patients.

[Xena11]

We really want to help her, but I don’t want anyone to catch something they don’t have.