Husband was taken off of meds

[hitherdither]

My husband, 57 was diagnosed w/Hep C last Aug. Genotype 1A. Viral Load at 600,000, platelets 60, nurse practitioner would'nt do a biopsy, believed looking at his bloodwork that he was stage 3/4 into cirrosis. CT scan normal. Everything checked out normal, no swelling of spleen, etc. No pain. AST 109, ALT 130. He was almost fine, a little fatigue but was able to work.Started Peg Interferon, Rebotol in Jan. Stayed on it 18 weeks. Was cleared of the virus at week 5. Had bad side effects, low blood, Arenesp brought it up, developed arthritis couldn't walk, lost 40 pds  was basically bedridden. She insisted taking him off  meds. Said he wasn't able to tolorate it, probably never will be able to if he didn't get off of it it would kill him. Last week his viral load came back at 1.8 million. We were expecting it to come back.  His platelets steady rose during treatment and are now at 127. She said that was unusal for them to go up. ALT is 69, AST is 79 at present. Most of his blood work is in normal range except ALBUMIN is 2.9, RDW is 18.8. WBC, CBC, RBC, HEMOGLOBIN, HEMATOCRIT are just below normal levels.  No liver pain, ever, good appetite, gained 25 pds back. Takes milk thistle, vit.C, glucosimene, multi vit. wo/iron, fish oil, celexa, is on the methodone program for maint. Isn't able to work without arthritis flareup and in hindsight wishes he hadn't taken the meds. He was in better shape before. Now he can't hear out of one ear and his eyesite isn't as good as it was prior to meds. If she won't put him back on the meds. what else can we do? She still won't do a biopsy so we don't really know what we are dealing with. And do we really want to do that again anyway? What diet is good for him and what to look for in his health in case he gets bad. I'm so worried about him and am imagining all kinds of things. I just need some reasurrance that we aren't getting from the nurse practioner. She didn't even return our one and only call to her last week. Thank you in advance!

[Thomas D Schiano, MD]

i would not restart interferon treatment.  i do not think that a biopsy is important right now.  he should try to ehnter a clinical trial of new meds that are coming down the road, although most will eventually be used with and not intsead of interferon.  he can try SAMe for fatigue.  would try and discontinue the prednisone if at all possible.  hopefully he will get back to his normal self pre-interferon with further time.

[Thomas D Schiano, MD]

i definitely think he should enter a clinical trial although interferon may be a part of it.

[hitherdither]

Thank you for your reply. We probably will wait for the new meds to come out. Maybe by then he'll be able to tolorate them better. Thanks again.

[hitherdither]

Forgot to say he's on 2.5 mil. prednisone for the arthritis.

Thank you for any help.