New Patient - First Time posting

Welcome Marsch! I am happy to hear you will start treatment and soon become cured of Hep C.

Some things to help with riba side effects would be drinking lots of water, eating something fatty when you take the riba.

You also may feel out of breath as the time passes. Anemia is something common with riba. Solvaldi seems to have only a bit of a headache for some. Oh, and if you get heartburn stomach stuff, take something like omeprozole, Previcid, or Nexium. Those seem to take care of that. Also, there is a side effect you may notice called riba rage. It is more common with the 24 week treatment, but you may notice yourself being more edgy and cranky after being on ribavirin for a few weeks.

Other than a lot more water than you would normally drink (we suggest 1/2 your body weight in oz, per day) and something like nut butter on a cracker, or some avacado with the riba....you should be able to eat your normal diet :) We always suggest a heart healthy, low sodium diet for those with liver disease.

The 12 week treatment seems to be quite tolerable and most don't need to alter work or life while treating. Being cured is worth any short term side effect.

Congrats on getting treatment and keep us in the loop as you move forward. Again, welcome to Healing Well! Big Hugs

welcome to the forum!!!! i recently finished treatment and was lucky with no sides, I hope you experience the same!!all of us in the forum are behind you..

A belated welcome. I've not been well and have been absent from my moderator duties. I'm trying to catch up on the active posts. Will be interested to hear your news during treatment, Hugs, Mama Lama

Welcome M12! I began treatment this same time last year also for G2 with Sov. and Riba for 12 weeks. I suffered with headaches, especially during the first two weeks. Although I tried to go without taking medication (prescription migraine medication or tylenol) I ended up taking some medication when needed. Some nausea but ginger ale helped. The headaches got better but fatigue got worse. Luckily, I could get through the day pretty well. At night I was not good for much of anything so I made no evening plans. When I felt good I went out! Just try to get all the rest you can when you can get it. Anytime I felt bad I just reminded myself how lucky I was to be able to be treated! Virus free now and liver has been healing. Good luck and ask any questions that you have here.

Thanks again for the welcomes, stories and advice. Congratulations on your accomplishments. I'm on day 4 now and pretty much feel ok. Last night I had a bit of nausea and was really tired but today I'm feeling pretty good so far. I go on a business trip next week so I hope that I feel good for that.

So it appears that I have a little problem with my prescriptions that I'm trying to get sorted out. Evidently it was submitted to two different pharmacies that both are trying to fill. After 5 phone calls it's still not resolved but I was ensured that my treatment would not be interrupted. Express scripts is not the best company I have dealt with. Their customer service reps, although very nice, really don't know how to fix this or give me a good way to proceed. I received my first month's worth from Premier Pharmacy Services and I will say they are very good. They took it upon themselves to sign me up for co-pay assistance. So it is only $5.00 per month. I'm calling them back on Monday to ask for higher level assistance or a Manager.

I wish everyone a good weekend and for those affected by the storm on the east coast stay safe and warm.

marsch21

Mike took a different protocol, Sovaldi and Olysio. He had had a really rough time with Riba in 2009 with INF...that was awful for him (and the whole family....he was very grumpy). This time he did not have sides, cleared in a few weeks, and actually felt BETTER on the meds than he had in a long time because that ****** virus was GONE.

HOWEVER, remember that you liver has been damaged, your Fibrosis score was 4, so that isn't going away soon. Liver cells that are not cirrhotic may regenerate and that would be great. All in all, you will have STOPPED the destruction of what is left of your liver. Like you, Mike had Hep C and drank alcohol. Congrats to BOTH OF YOU for putting that aside. If you continued to drink with a damaged liver, it could get worse, even with the Hep C gone.

I think this is going to work out for you, especially since your Viral load wasn't' through the roof at the outset of treatment.

Best luck, Mama Lama

So now I've finished 7 weeks of a 16 week treatment. I think I've been tolerating it pretty good. Some days I'm very tired but overall I can feel some energy returning. The good news is that I was undetectable at 2 weeks. My values are getting back in the normal ranges. Go back on the 23rd for my next checkup. Hope everyone's week is going good.