Hepatitis C Treatment Details

12.30 a.m.

It is kind of weird that it was exactly this time last year that my wife and I got the killer flu that was responsible for triggering the blooming of my dormant Hep C virus. Only a year ago... it seems longer.

So I was laying in bed wondering whether I should get up and just thinking about stuff. I was actually thinking about a guy who received his Myhep from India today, two days earlier than we had expected. I was thinking how I told him that I had gotten a pill box with the days of the week marked so I would know if I had forgotten to take my pills. Shit!!! Then I realised that I had not taken my evening dose of ribavirin, which has to be taken with food. So that is then end of any hope of sleep and I am up at midnight eating ribavirin and bananas... YUM (not).

This then brings me to a request a few people have asked me about; to outline exactly the treatment and how it effects my life.

The treatment is one tablet of sofosbuvir and 6 tablets of ribavirin. The ribavirin is taken three tablets in the morning and three in the evening. Ribavirin must be taken with food.

Sofosbuvir can be taken with or without food and there was no particular time told to take it. I take mine at breakfast with the ribavirin because then that is done and out of the way. I never forget the morning tablets but often forget the evening ones because evening meals often involve friends, or going out or some other distraction. Tonight is the first time I have actually gone to bed without taking them (I blame the pill box).

My wife usually asks me in the evening if I have taken my ribavirin. If I have, then I tell her that there is no need to remind me... If I have not remembered then I thank her and take them. But she has the flu tonight and was too tired to remind me.

So that is the treatment. I am now 6 weeks into it. Side effects? Not many, not significant. 

Certainly my concentration is not good. I make about ten times more typing mistakes than normal (I’m an author so I do a LOT of typing).

I forget stuff all the time, like I will be sitting here and think of something I should write and forget it before I can start writing. I hunt around in my head for words I should know and can not find them. All in all not dramatic but annoying.

It’s midnight now, need I say more?

Yes I admit it, my normal shining and positive personality has become a cranky old grumble guts.... well it’s not that bad. I try to watch myself and I have said (and written) some things that I really should not have, however I don’t think it is a big issue. My wife has not left me and my cat still hangs around my ankles at dinner time.

Apart from that there is nothing else that I have noticed. I go up into the forest and cut firewood. I go up into the mountains and fish for trout. I take my friends river kayaking and shooting the rapids up the mighty Huon River. I answer emails I work on my books I work in the garden and drive my car and so on and so on. That’s my life nothing much has changed apart from the fact I have lots more energy than I did 6 weeks ago and I do not have to spend 2 or more hours sleeping through the day.

I am getting regular emails from people who have just done the trip to India and returned home with their medication. And there are quite a few others who I have helped organise to have their meds couriered in (in countries where that is legal). It is great to see this is happening. It is great to see that people are taking control of their health and not waiting around for health department officials to decide their fate.