Hepatitis C Patients Are Being Forced Into Underground Buyers' Clubs

[turbinetree]

BY Elizabeth Brico TalkPoverty.org
PUBLISHED
October 11, 2018

This article was published by TalkPoverty.org.
Lisa Kaye Gray has been tired since she was 26 years old. Now 52, and a grandmother with rust-red hair and a lilting Louisiana accent, she is finally gaining the energy to help her grandson chase squirrels through the backyard. But her voice still breaks as she recalls decades marked by fatigue and muscle aches; early symptoms of hepatitis C.

“I missed out on so much,” she mourns. “Just being tired, not able to enjoy life.”

Gray acquired hepatitis C in 1991, and spent more than twenty years living with the virus’s effects. Though she didn’t begin to experience symptoms of major liver damage until 2015, she says she spent most of her life feeling fatigued, sometimes to the point of being bedridden, and nauseated.

Interferon treatment, the first available treatment for chronic hepatitis C, was introduced in 1996, but the cure rate was low; around 30 percent for genotype 1, the most common form of the virus in North America. It was also difficult to administer, requiring self-injection into the stomach, and came with a host of side-effects, ranging from nausea and muscle aches to long-term autoimmune dysfunction. The full treatment course lasted six months to a year. Gray tried interferon treatment for a month, but discontinued it when she learned she was pregnant.

“I’m glad I did,” says Gray. “I’ve heard horror stories about people who took it for the year.”

Gray is not the only hepatitis C patient who chose decades living with the virus over attempting interferon. David Cowley of Wales lived with hepatitis C for 35 years, refusing interferon because of its side effects and low success rate. But Gray and Cowley share something else in common: neither has hepatitis C anymore.

https://truthout.org/articles/hepatitis-c-patients-are-being-forced-into-underground-buyers-clubs/

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R for exposure.

[ronatchig]

2. I can only say thank goodness

For the V.A. Not only did they find my help c ,but cured me of this silent monster.

[teach1st]

3. My insurance covered Harvoni

I'm one of the lucky (ex) Hep C sufferers. Insurance from my teaching gig covered Harvoni nearly completely. It worked like a charm and I'm completely free of the disease. I remember getting my first bottle of meds and freaking out about driving home with a bottle of medicine worth almost 4 times my car.

It seems that it's in our society's best interest to ensure that those who need this treatment get it.

[mopinko]

4. just be careful if you decide to take harvoni.

there is a black box warning for cardiac complications, but they dont tell you that on the commercials.
my bil died of a preventable heart attack after taking it. nobody told him, and he had a hip replacement w/o anyone finding out that he had major blockages. even tho his blood pressure was going up.

[Hortensis]

5. Cost of a 12-week Harvoni course around the world,

according to a hep C buyers' club.



https://fixhepc.com/blog/item/46-hepatitis-c-tourism.html