Misc [UK] (maybe just in my regions, but) Why Do Drug Users Act Like Hep C is a Death Sentence or Horrific and Incurable?

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

While living in homeless hostels, I was basically the only person who had an issue sharing needles. If I had used one and someone else didn't have one and wanted to use it after me, that's up to them, but I would never use one someone else had used. When asked why I usually said the HIV risk and always got the same response from people, which was something to the tune of "nah, HIV is no big deal anymore, it's hep c you want to be REALLY worried about".

Well, some time later I was at...some doctorsy place? I think having my liver function checked. And they told me I had Hepatitis C so I was like "Oh fuck"....and there's a fucking cure! You literally take one pill a day for 12 weeks and that's it. I was 100% cured after.
People really be fear-mongering about that shit.

 

[SoCalShordie]

Hm not sure. Found out I have Hep C when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2022. Doctor told me it wouldn’t pass on to my baby and it didn’t. I hear there’s actually a medication now that cures it.

 

[RustyCrackleford]

Its prolly because it USED to be a way worse treatment and also way harder to get on. Where i am, they used to only get you treatment if you were in the final stages and only if you had a certain amount of time sober. At least this is what health department old timers tell me. Also interferon was a super shitty treatment to go through, and didnt have the highest cure rate, like 70% if i remember right, but i may be wrong. Mavyret is much cheaper, better, and easier to take now a days. Its like a couple pills a day for a few months and has a 90 something percent clear rate. My friends dad went through interferon for hep c and chemo for cancer at different times and he said the interferon was worse by a mile for him.

 

[blondin]

I found out i had hepc before i went in to rehab a few years ago - I worked out I had had it for at least 20y, liver damaged but not critical. 3 month course of tablets and no virus detected.

 

[Señor Moreno]

when I got it it wasn't even called hep c, they called it nonA/nonB hep. That was late 80s or so.
The treatments then were harsh as fuck, Interferon and others, often asociated to AZT as the coinfection Hiv/hep c was the rule, and people not allways made it through both the treatments and the addiction. Multiple reinfections were normal, cause there weren't needle change points, so yes, hep c was fucked and it wasn't rare for it to end in a liver cancer.

But I remember us being scared of hep B cause the b virus acted as a gate for hep D. You couldn't get hep d without having hep b first. It didn't happen often, I had hep b once with no major problem, but when it ended allowing the hep D to happen, liver cancer was almost granted. I only meet a few folks with hep D and none of them survived it, granted they were hardcore junkies, but still scary.


The medications we have nowadays are awesome, a real Godsend. I got free of C in 8 weeks while literally trekking in the mountains, zero negative effects.

 

[mauve]

Ever since effective anti retroviral therapy, hiv has become a chronic infection which also if one is undetectable by taking their medication as cannot transmit the virus undetectable = untransmittable U=U

HOWEVER, people still see it as a death sentence.

Hepatitis c has been very tricky to treat in the past, and by looking at the timeline it's only been recently that an effective treatment has become available so it goes without saying the same thing applies here.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Depends. If left untreated in the acute stage hep C can turn into a chronic infection.

 

[Imaginarium]

The sad part is that for many, and in many parts of the world, chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a cause of significantly morbidity and mortality. As you allude to in your thread title, it really does depend on where you are located. Globally, coverage of HCV testing and treatment is sub-optimal, however, in some countries such as Australia that provide subsidised point-of-care HCV RNA testing and treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAA). Compared to previous treatments, DAA therapy is safe, well tolerated and efficacious. This has been a game-changer for many and is resposible for active HCV infection no longer being see as a death-sentence. However, globally, DAA therapy is not available is many locations and there are significant barriers to testing and treatment.

 

[axe battler]

Yeah i think its cause the treatment used to be brutal, but it's a doddle now apparently, so get twsted people.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

yeah, just echoing others really

it was a massive deal until quite recently

plenty people have died as a result of it's affect on the liver, many times more than that have suffered terribly from it

and yeah - the 'treatment' was so shockingly nasty (if you were lucky you'd get zero bad feels from the treatment though, but that was quite rare) I have personally seen it reduce massive biker dudes to wailing wrecks. I've know multiple people not manage to finish the treatment, really 'hard' and stoic people too.

I also know two people personally whose mental health was ruined by the ribavarin / interferon combination to the level that they still cannot solve simple maths sums and remember what day /time it is a decade-plus since treatment. Totally ruined their lives pretty much. So, that's why the fear!

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

Its prolly because it USED to be a way worse treatment and also way harder to get on. Where i am, they used to only get you treatment if you were in the final stages and only if you had a certain amount of time sober. At least this is what health department old timers tell me. Also interferon was a super shitty treatment to go through, and didnt have the highest cure rate, like 70% if i remember right, but i may be wrong. Mavyret is much cheaper, better, and easier to take now a days. Its like a couple pills a day for a few months and has a 90 something percent clear rate. My friends dad went through interferon for hep c and chemo for cancer at different times and he said the interferon was worse by a mile for him.

That might have been the pills I had then. I didn't even end up with like "undetectable" or anything, I literally just don't have the virus at all anymore. Zero side-effects from the drug, either.
Awesome how far modern medicine has come!
Like, if I'd be born 100 years earlier I'd 100% be dead as I'm an insulin-dependant diabetic and insulin wasn't available until they 1920's. Before that, the treatment was a VERY low calorie (sometimes as low as 450 calories a day for an adult man) diet....unsurprisingly, the patients would starve to death fairly quickly.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

yeah, just echoing others really

it was a massive deal until quite recently

plenty people have died as a result of it's affect on the liver, many times more than that have suffered terribly from it

and yeah - the 'treatment' was so shockingly nasty (if you were lucky you'd get zero bad feels from the treatment though, but that was quite rare) I have personally seen it reduce massive biker dudes to wailing wrecks. I've know multiple people not manage to finish the treatment, really 'hard' and stoic people too.

I also know two people personally whose mental health was ruined by the ribavarin / interferon combination to the level that they still cannot solve simple maths sums and remember what day /time it is a decade-plus since treatment. Totally ruined their lives pretty much. So, that's why the fear!

Sounds horrifying! Treatment sounds almost worse than the disease.