When a friend of mine learned that I had hepatitis C back in 2014, he told me that he had also had hep C but was cured after taking part in some of the early trials for DAAs. I was surprised because back then, I assumed that most people got hep C from sharing needles and he had never seemed to be that kind of guy.

When I asked how he had caught hepatitis C, he explained to me that he got hep C after having dental work done in a country where hygiene standards were not great. Over time, as my involvement with the hep C world increased, I learned that huge numbers of people contracted hep C from getting dental work done when hygiene standards were not as strict as they are now.

In the recent documentary about my work, there was an interview with a Romanian doctor who is an expert on Romania’s hepatitis C situation, he explained that a huge percentage of Romania’s hep C infections came from low hygiene standards in dental treatment during Romania’s communist era.

Many people who learn that they have hep C are driven half-mad trying to figure out how they caught the disease, no tattoos, not drug use, no blood transfusions. Many of these would have caught hep C from dental treatment.

So why am I talking about hep C and dentists today?

Well, yesterday I received a lovely email from a lovely lady named Genaveave who is a dental technician based in the USA and who I helped to get hep C treatment in 2019. She just now received her SVR 12 “You are cured” test results.


Genaveave wrote to share this good news with me and offered to write me a testimonial but instead, I asked if she would mind writing her hepatitis C survivor’s story. Whilst hep C treatment testimonials are great and very helpful to me, hepatitis C survivor stories are a huge help to people thinking about doing their hepatitis C treatment using generic hep C medicines.

So here is Genaveave’s story.

A Hepatitis C Survivor’s Story

I wanted to write a testimonial about my journey with the diagnosis of hepatitis C to encourage people to seek alternate methods to obtain the pharmaceutical drugs necessary to treat the virus. I am 41 years old and have been working in the dental field since 1999. Most recently in the last 7 years I have been a dental lab technician fabricating dentures. I was exposed to many blood borne pathogens on a daily basis without using proper personal protection equipment or reporting injuries. Due to my negligence I believe this is where I contracted the hepatitis c virus.

My journey started in 2017 when I just had a generalized feeling that something was wrong. I was feeling very fatigued and an overall feeling of not feeling good. Upon blood work, I had elevated liver functions and was advised to stop consuming alcohol and change my diet. I did both and three months later my blood work came back normal.

Two years later in 2019 again I was just not feeling right and sought care. A physician assistant had me tested for hep c and my results came back positive for hep c genotype 1b. At that time I had medical insurance and for pharmacy coverage my portion was $15,000 for an 8-week treatment. Unable to afford the cost for medication, I quit my job to seek a lower-paying job where I could qualify for a state-funded insurance program based on income.

November 2019, I sought care again through state insurance and I was told the insurance would not cover Harvoni, which was the recommended drug from the doctor and instead the insurance company dictated another prescription that had many more side effects but was more cost effective and treatment was 8 weeks taking medication twice a day.

During the process of being diagnosed with hep c, I joined a support group on Facebook and that’s where I saw Greg Jefferys replying to many posts about how he can help with medications. After having my insurance deny Harvoni, I reached out to Greg Jefferys. I had read so many testimonials about Greg and how he had helped so many people access medication at a reasonable cost to treat hep c. My communication started with Greg in May 2019 and after I figured out what my insurance company would do I let Greg know on November 17th 2019 that I needed his help. By December 2nd, 2019 I had received the Gilead generic version of Harvoni. I live in Oregon, USA, and Greg is in Australia. Throughout the transaction Greg was very responsive and I felt very comfortable with receiving his help.

I decided to wait until the beginning of 2020 to start medication. So, on January 11th I started medication. On February 26th I had blood work done (at this time I still had 9 days left of treatment) and blood work confirmed that hep C no longer was in my body.

Thank you will never be enough for all Greg is doing to help people gain access to prescription drugs to treat hepatitis c. I am going to help other people gain access to his services. I encourage anyone to take the similar path I did to treat hepatitis c. Greg is a god-sent angel and is truly helping people treat a virus that should be more financially accessible for all people.

Sincerely,

Genaveave

Greg’s blog is reprinted with permission, and the views are entirely his.